A Different View
by Archonix
Summary: An accident in the Professor's lab changes Fry in to a woman and has more profound consequences that alter the very course of history itself. Now Fry will have to deal with her new personal life whilst saving the universe from a sinister alien conspiracy.
1. The Deadliest Species

**Chapter One – The Deadliest Species**

Blackness, like space.

Space.

That was important. Something about stars. And flying. What happened?

Some sort of explosion. A loud crunch and a flash of light.

Light. A scintillating line of it, spreading across the blackness. Eyes opening...

Breathing. A gasp. Blurred figures leaning over the light, black on white, moving shadows blurred...

A hospital room. _What happened?_

"Fry? You're awake?" A voice speaking out of the darkened light. Familiar, friendly, welcome. A name. "Fry?"

Darkness again. Then light. A hint of purple.

"Fry, I don't quite know how to put this, but there was a bit of an accident. You... you..." a paling shadow leans forward, light-rimmed and filled with a glowing white orb. "Something happened.

"No, don't move. You've lost a lot of weight, the doctors don't quite know what... how to explain it, but they wouldn't would they?

"You're perfectly healthy as far as they can tell, apart from some minor neural trauma. I bet you have a hell of a headache...

"Just lie still for now. You need to rest." The shadow seemed to smile, filling out into a familiar face even as it faded from view.

Darkness again. Sounds and strange lights. Dreams.

Nightmares. A strange, twisted tower of metal and flesh and bone exploding with brilliant blue-white energy. A sense of substance _shifting_, of the body flying backwards and dissolving. Pain and terror.

* * *

Fry woke with a start in a darkened room and for a blind moment squirmed about in panic, overcome by a momentary sense of falling, which passed away into the darkness and was gone.

The bed was strange. Slightly upright, caged by metal guards at each side. Machines blipped and warbled in the twilight, casting tiny flares of red and amber and green across the pillow. The darkness was less than it originally seemed, characteristic of a hospital. Slivers of light cracked between gaps in blinds, slipped under the door, casting odd shadows as people moved past outside in the eternal daylight of their work-world.

Something moved, and Fry tensed with unaccustomed terror. A familiar figure sat hunched in the far corner of the room, curled up on a hard-looking armchair. Fry sat up a little, rustling the bed, and disturbing the sleeping guest. She snorted and looked up, eye bleary from lack of sleep and puffy from something else.

Leela blinked and rubbed her eye. "Oh. You're awake again," she said, pushing herself out of the chair. There was a moment of worry in her eye as Fry's mouth opened. "Don't try to talk, they've put some sort of tube down your throat to help you breath."

A memory. Crunching bone, but not from any impact. Fry sat up further, pulling the sheets up high, and peered at Leela with a quizzical expression. Leela frowned, regarding the sheets and the bed, refusing to meet Fry's look.

She turned and looked away. "Fry, something happened. There was an explosion in the Professor's lab. Do you remember taking him a package?" Fry nodded eagerly. The memory was strong, recent, unblurred. After that... Leela was looking at him again, and seemed to nod at the frown that played across Fry's face. She came and sat on the bed.

"He was working on some new machine, nobody knows quite what it was for, but when it exploded it..." she looked down, not quite meeting Fry's gaze again. "You were changed by the blast. Some sort of, well, nobody's quite sure what it was. An energy beam, maybe something to do with a matter transporter he was working on the other week."

* * *

_You were changed..._ Fry felt the blackness closing in again, scrabbled at the tracheal tube that burrowed through skin to tortured lungs, suddenly so short of air. There was a distant cry; Leela trying to stop the action, trying to, to suffocate... _changed_. What did it mean?

* * *

Darkness again for so very long, punctured by moments of bright colour and sound. _Is this what a coma feels like?_ Then the light came tearing back so suddenly that Fry couldn't help but cry out in sheer terror. The tracheal tube was gone, replaced by a soothingly cool bandage, and the machines were silent now. The cry faded to nothing at the sight of Leela returning to lean over again, to comfort and care. Her eye was... she was afraid. Sudden realisation of the _wrongness_ of everything. Sensations changed, different heat and cool, different weight and balance in limbs and body.

The voice. It was wrong too.

"What..." Fry shook in horror at the voice, so terribly high and soft, despite the roughness of days of sleep and dryness. Eyes suddenly filling with tears as a horrible fear settled. "What... happened?"

"You were changed," Leela said stubbornly, refusing to meet Fry's gaze _again_. Fry reached out to grab her arm and felt that wrongness again, the subtle redistribution of mass and muscle. The vague fear within began to solidify.

"What am I?"

"You're..." Leela stepped back. "The professor thinks his machine somehow tied in to a parallel universe and pulled aspects of it into this one. Changes. Minor things, a proton off course here, a butterfly changing colour there. Little things... but growing larger the closer to the explosion they were.

"That's the only explanation he has, that the explosion pulled the changes from some parallel universe where everything was almost identical, except..."

Fry pushed upright and stared at her, fear and shame starting to mix in equal measure. "Go on." That wrong voice again.

Leela looked down, one hand fiddling with her elbow as she toed the floor with her boot. "You... you're a woman, Fry. You were changed into a woman."

"Oh. Kinky," Fry said. Then she fainted.

* * *

_Please be a bad dream please be a bad dream..._

* * *

Fry opened his eyes again, blinking against the harsh-lit ceiling of the hospital room. There was nobody else around, and the machines were still silent. A picture-window opposite the bed let in a shaft of late-morning sun and a view out over New New York harbour, which looked mercifully unchanged. Liberty stood off to the side, maintaining her eternal vigil as she stared across the Atlantic.

Nobody around. Fry grimaced, feeling around the bed and noticing the strange ways his body had changed. Not a dream then. Gentle probing and prodding revealed everything was in approximately the right place, though some bits felt a lot softer than they had. Others felt firmer too. Still others were just _gone._ Fry let out a pained sigh and gave in, lifting up the sheets. A whimper escaped his... her...

"Awww crap, why did this have to happen to me?" That wrong voice again, resonating inside as if Fry had some distorted version of _his-or-her_ mother crawling around_ his-or-her _brain. Fry peered under the sheets again. There was an odd sensation, an itching at the back of the brain that seemed to be pulling mind and flesh in different directions. "Whatever happens I'm going to need a hell of a lot of counselling after this. Perhaps I'll end up with some nice looking g..." the thought froze on Fry's lips. As a man, women had always been the prime motivator, the first thought on waking and last before going to sleep, at least for _him_. Suddenly he realised that women held no attraction at all beyond a vague aesthetic appreciation. Fry thought about Amy, tried picturing her naked and could only think about how annoyingly smooth and perfect her skin was. He thought about Leela... something stirred, vague feelings of desire and longing that seemed to fall away even as they rose up, yet without ever quite disappearing.

_I almost said guy!_

Fry whimpered and pulled the sheets up over _his-or-her_ head. _This isn't fair_ he wanted to scream, but... _she_ didn't care. _She_ suddenly realised that _she_ was perfectly normal to think that way. Confused, relieved and still a little scared, Fry lowered the sheets from... _her... _head. Memories and thought-patterns that were used to operating as _he_ rebelled at the sudden mental pronoun change and Fry shuddered, unable to really cope with anything. For brief moments the his'n'her identity was completely lost as Fry's mind stumbled and fell flat on its back out of sheer confusion at what had happened. He fell down to the bed, slipping gratefully through the mass of pillows and into a semi-oblivion as mind and will dissolved and were remade.

She sat up. _She. _Fry looked down, examined her hands and arms carefully, turning them this way and that. Beautiful hands, long-fingered and dexterous, so much more capable in so many ways than before. She could try the holophoner again...

..._ a moment of ambiguity as desire rose unbidden, tempered by strange associations of companionship and jealousy..._

Fry shook her head, shifting the discontinuity of her thoughts and trying to concentrate on _now_. So.

A woman.

Curiosity took her. She pulled away the sheets, wondering how she would react, and looked down. A blue-green hospital gown greeted her, bulging in odd-yet-right places and not in others. She ran her hands down her legs as she sat forward, felt weight in new places _shift_ ever so slightly, but nothing more. Normal. Another moment of discontinuity as thoughts censored themselves before they could become conscious. Fry shuffled forward and slipped off the end of the bed. There had to be a mirror somewhere.

There was. A three-quarter-length mirror was pinned to the wall by a small closet opposite the door. Fry stood in front of it, turning this way and that, though she tried to ignore her face. Wasn't it about now that all the weird sexy stuff started? She vaguely remembered being attached to Amy and having control of an arm, but...

She pulled the gown tight, trying to get a better idea of her figure. It wasn't too bad considering how he'd treated himself in the past; perky. Petite maybe. Her hips weren't too narrow, her waist wasn't too wide and her breasts weren't the huge, overstuffed back-breakers he'd always fantasised about before. Before. Already memories were self-editing, swapping male and female in her mind, changing the substance of events to match her new self-identity. But nothing, no sense that she should be _enjoying_ this self-examination. Not in the way _he_ would have thought.

Discontinuity again. Fry pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to concentrate on the present. Evidently thinking about the past was too confusing, especially for her. "Still got the brains," she said sadly. At least she wasn't blonde, otherwise she'd have to apply for a stereotype permit.

Finally she allowed herself to look at her face. Her hair was still short, though her long stay in the hospital had left it completely un-styled. It made her look a little boyish, confusingly so, as otherwise her face was quite a picture. Her nose seemed the same, though fortunately suitably feminised, so that it made her characterful rather than ugly. _Nothing a quick nose-job wouldn't fix._

The thought came unbidden, and Fry gasped in surprise at her own mental behaviour. Was she really so shallow? She remembered Bender's brief transformation and his behaviour, still essentially male despite everything else. Appealing to his own male ego. A manbot trapped in a fembot's body. _Is that what I'll be like?_ Already she was having doubts. She looked at her hands again, wondering... she was still herself, still Fry, but she was different. Completely different. But would she go that way? Could she live with herself as some sort of parody?

Fry growled at herself in the mirror and, with sudden resolution, yanked at her gown until the straps tore from each other. She tossed it on the floor and glared defiantly at the mirror.

Nothing. She was completely naked, but all she felt was a slight sense of embarrassed shame. Suddenly she shivered; a gust of air had crossed the room, and the light had changed every so slightly. Fry's terror returned and she looked over her shoulder in the mirror.

"Leela?" Fry ducked and slapped both hands over her crotch. Then realised that wasn't enough and quickly tried to shift her arms, confused. Then...

Leela had her eye closed, her face bright pink. "The autodoc said you were up and about. You, uh... you're..."

"It isn't what you think," Fry said, grabbing her gown from the floor and trying to pull it on again. "Really, it isn't. I know it sounds weird." Success! She jumped back into the bed and pulled the sheets up to her chin. "I wasn't 'enjoying the view' or any other sarcastic thing you might want to think like that. I... I had to know something. You can open your eye now. I'm decent."

Leela contrived to pull open half her eyelid and peered sideways at Fry. "I should have knocked. If I'd know you were-"

"I wasn't! Whatever you think, I wasn't. I thought I might, y'know, but... Leela, what's happened to me? I tried thinking about Amy and all I got was jealous!"

Leela's face closed up, though she didn't frown or obviously get annoyed. Then Fry realised that she'd actually noticed it; she felt sick to her stomach. It must have shown on her face, too, because suddenly Leela's expression softened. She dropped a small bag on the side unit and sat down on the bed, taking Fry's hand in her own.

"You're probably having hormonal problems," Leela said with an encouraging smile.

"That's not funny, Leela."

"I wasn't joking." Leela patted Fry's hand and smiled again, though a little sorrow flickered behind her eyes. "Your body changed in an instant, but humanoid hormones take weeks to move through their cycles. You're still feeling the effects of that change."

"Is that why I suddenly feel like I want to rip everyone's head off and scream a lot?"

"Uhh... possibly," Leela said. She shuffled down the bed an inch or so before continuing. "The thing is, you have to know that I'm here for you. Amy is here for you... well she was, last time I saw her she was chatting up a doctor, but I'm sure she's really concerned."

"Hah. As if..." Fry frowned, trying to lock down her feelings again. The brief moment of rage and fear had subsided, leaving her with a quiet sort of determination. "Leela, I think... I'm... remember Bender getting a sex change?"

"I do," Leela said, suddenly a little colder. She peered at him. "You're not saying-"

"No. That's the thing, I actually agree with you now. He was... was..." Fry struggled for a word that wasn't insulting. _Damn brain._ "Wrong, y'know? But I remember thinking he was absolutely right to be that way, which is exactly how I would think. Only now I don't."

"That must be confusing." Leela's face was a picture of sympathy, though tinged with something else. Triumph? Was she _gloating?_ Fry decided to ignore it for now, but she filed the thought away in her mind to stew over later.

* * *

Much later, after discovering the box of chocolates in Leela's bag and spending a few hours discussing the finer points of Amy's relationships –

_How could she chat up doctors when she was still with Kif?_

_Gotta be force of habit..._

– Fry felt like she was finally coming to terms with the changes the Professor's explosion had wrought. Or at least that's what she was telling herself as the afterglow of the chocolate faded, leaving her in twilight again as night fell. Leela finally left, giving her a friendly peck on the cheek as she went; Fry touched the dry-damp spot with a curious finger after the door shut and was suddenly filled with a terrible sense of loss. Her eyes filled up with momentary tears, that she managed to banish long enough to feel a victory. Fry turned and peered into the bag Leela had left. There was a small book, a potted plant, some underwear (some of which must have been Leela's because it was far too big) and a picture of Leela, Fry and the rest of the crew standing on the Perdido docks on Crozubon Three to watch the sunrise just a few weeks ago, which Fry picked it up and stared at for what seemed like several hours. Then she cried herself to sleep.

* * *

The hospital insisted on putting her in a wheelchair, though everyone said she was perfectly healthy. The doctor had been very condescending about it for some reason that Fry just couldn't fathom, and which she was reluctant to put down to anything. Getting into feminism after just a few weeks of being a woman was too much to even consider. Besides... and it felt strangely liberating to think it, he was kind of hot.

Then her mind had rebelled, and she'd spent the next few hours lolling mindlessly in the chair as she was wheeled back to the Planet Express building. Leela and Zoidberg had accompanied her. Zoidberg had managed the discharge, claiming to be her personal physician. They had wanted to keep her in for another week for "observation", but Fry had told Leela that she couldn't spend another day in the hospital.

She was in her right mind again by the time they reached the Planet Express Building, and Fry was glad they'd had the wheelchair when she realised how long she'd been insensate. But, with a determined grimace, she pulled herself from the chair and made her way up the stairs to the employee lounge under her own power, where she collapsed in the couch with a relieved sigh. Her hand reached instinctively for the beers that she knew were propped in a cooler by the side of the couch and she was just finishing the first when Leela came into the room.

"I see some things never change," she said, a wry grin playing across her features. Fry stared at Leela, then at her beer, feeling something but not quite understanding what it was. Perhaps she was just feeling the alcohol. It had been a while.

"I am who I am, Leela," Fry replied after opening another beer.

"I can see that." Leela put her hand on her hip. "Well I guess I'd hoped your change would be more fundamental."

"More fundamental than changing a chromo... sow... mee?" Fry grimaced at her lack of knowledge. "That thing with the genes on it. I can't change who I am Leela, you know that already. Just because I'm different doesn't mean I'm not the same. Or... something."

Leela tittered behind her hand and rolled her eye at Fry. She gave Leela a _look. "_Okay," Leela eventually said. "You just sit there and get used to being in the real world again. I have to-" Leela was interrupted by the door crashing open. Bender burst into the room, waving a sombrero and a box of cigars.

"Hey there squishy crewmates, I'm back! Did you miss me? Did you miss good old Bender, who was away from you for so long?" He stuffed a cigar into Leela's mouth and lit it before she could protest. "Finest Cuban cigars from New Mexico City! A gift from your pal Bender, who you certainly haven't forgotten during his absence!"

Leela pulled the cigar from her mouth and stubbed it out on Bender's head. "I take it you enjoyed your trip to Tijuana?"

"Did I? Did I!" Bender leaned forward sadly, dropping his 'gifts' and souvenirs. "I hated it... everything's so different now. They're making cars. _Cars!_ How can I live with myself knowing the place of my birth makes mindless automatons?"

"You'll get over it," Fry said. Bender turned his head very slowly and stared at Fry.

"What..." he leaned toward Leela. "Who's the chick wearing Fry's coat, sitting in Fry's seat and drinking Fry's beer?"

"Bender, I would have preferred a better time to tell you this... there was an accident."

"You mean Fry's dead? I call his locker!" Bender wound up as if to run from the room until Leela put a calming hand on his chestplate. "What?"

"If you'd let me finish." Leela's exasperation was enough to even give Bender pause. "What I was going to say is, that _is_ Fry."

Bender turned to look at Fry again, managing a fairly good approximation of confusion on his otherwise immobile face. He zoomed his eyes in to get a better view. "Are you cracked in the head Leela?" he said after a moment. "I mean, that's a girl. A fembag, or whatever you walking sausages call it. I'm pretty sure Fry's a guy."

Leela let out an exasperated sigh. She grabbed Bender's arm and dragged him to the other side of the room. "Look, there was an accident in the Professor's lab, something zapped Fry and turned him into a girl. If you want details you can ask the Professor later. Right now he, uh, that is _she_ needs some time to adjust."

"I get it. You want understanding and discretion. Well that's easy, I'm twenty-two percent discrete circuits!" Bender thumped his chestplate, sending something rattling around his insides until a few stray chips and components dropped out of his crotchplate. "Ahh... better make that twenty-one point nine percent."

"Just be nice, okay? She still needs to get used to herself."

"Well, I'll try," Bender said, lighting up a cigar. "It might not be easy though. I had us booked in to see a mud-wrestling competition this evening." He paused and blew smoke. Leela stared at him aghast, and tried to splutter a reply. "Oh don't worry your stupid bulgy head, it's all robot."

"Well..."

"I can deal with it Leela. Jeez, you'd think you guys didn't trust me to be mature and responsible." Bender wandered off, leaving Leela with a bemused look on her face. He paused beside Fry, looked her up and down and pulled a beer out of his compartment. "So Fry, want to go out and ogle some hot..."

Fry looked at him, perplexed. She mouthed out what Bender had been saying under her breath and then stared at him again. "No."

"Oh."

Leela stared across the room at the suddenly icy scene and slapped her forehead. "D'oh..."

Bender casually wandered back across the room, heading toward the kitchen. He paused beside Leela. "Well, I blew it again, good old Bender." He seemed to think about what had just passed for a moment. "See ya." And with that he pushed through the kitchen door.

Fry sat up a little, staring at her beer. She looked at Leela. "This stuff tastes like piss. Got any import?"

* * *

Professor Farnsworth bumbled across his upstairs lab, which seemed curiously untouched by whatever had happened, and paused by an almost comically oversized computer. He poked a few buttons and mumbled to himself.

Fry watched him from the doorway, afraid to enter the room as vague half-memories tugged at her mind. She watched him pottering between arcane machinery and strange substances in jars and on trays, checking a retort here or a screen there. Finally he stopped and looked at the door.

"Ahh, Fry, you're back in one piece again," he said, shuffling over to the door. Fry tried not to cower back; she almost succeeded. "Hmm, I see you've had a few changes. You remind me of my own dear sister when she was your age, hm'yes. Men would flock for thousands of miles to woo her but she had none of it." Farnsworth stared at Fry again. "Where was I?"

"You weren't, Professor, you'd only said hello."

Farnsworth adjusted his glasses and peered at Fry again. "I had? Well, now. I expect you want to know if you can be changed back, yes?"

"It had crossed my mind." Fry had preferred not to think about it too much. Right now she wasn't quite in a state to make any life-changing decisions, and if she _did_ think about it she might end up..._ no, stop it Fry, later!_

"I'm afraid the process is a little opaque at the moment. Uh..." Farnsworth took out a strange scanning device and began running it over Fry. "The changes are not even at a quantum level. They're at the level of the very fabric of the universe itself, an a material scientists have spent the best part of a thousand years trying to analyse without success. I don't quite understand how it occurred but the accident seems to have swapped aspects of two universes with each other. Presumably some parallel version of me is trying to figure out why you've turned into a man." With that he snapped the machine shut. "It might take years to calculate a way to reverse the change."

"You're saying I'm stuck this way?" Fry looked up at the high windows and blinked away a tear.

"Oh my yes." He adjusted his glasses again and peered at her. "I'm sorry Fry, but the only way I could help is to find out how to measure something that can't be measured."

Fry felt a sudden urge to make a very crude joke. She turned away, shoulders slumped as she sighed. "Thanks for telling me, Professor. Everyone else has tried to be so _nice_ about all of this, but you told me what I needed to hear instead of what I wanted to hear."

Farnsworth looked up from his readouts again. "Wah? Was I talking again?"

"Uh... you... never mind. Thank you Professor."

"Any time miss..."

"It's me Professor. Fry."

"Oh yes. Well, run along Miss Fry, you have a job to do I expect."

Fry nodded and slunk from the room, defeat dragging her shoulders and head toward the floor.

* * *

_Darkness again, but infinitely deeper than night. In the black void between stars something stirred, some stray atom on a course not quite what it should have followed, careening onward as its path diverged from what should have been..._

* * *

The starship drifted in the black depths of interstellar space, cast in a deep shadow that was relieved only by its navigation beacons and a few lit ports and windows. Bright floodlights picked out the registration serial DP1792, and the name emblazoned on its basking-shark-like hull. _Nimbus._

Off her port-side, some thousands of kilometres distant, a smaller and more agile looking craft coasted to a relative halt facing the _Nimbus_. Antennae were deployed, smaller craft ejected from both ships in defensive formations. An invisible barrier, a boundary of influence, was established between the two ships as the crews of frigates and corvettes eyed each other across the vast nothing of space.

Formalities dealt with, the ships began to communicate. Carrier signals breached the void, taking routine traffic that slowly built as relationships were established, until finally a video link was opened.

Lieutenant Kroker stared at the figure that appeared on the screen and tried not to cower behind the command chair. The one race his people truly feared, apart from Humans (and that almost entirely because of his captain) were here, facing them, scant kilometres away. A pair of blank-faced slave-crew stood behind the creature.

"I've never seen one so close before," he whispered, and instantly realised his mistake. The Ruklisk on the screen glowered at him through a tangle of impractical spikes and leather, but said nothing. "Uhh... your excellency, most, uh... high... his captainness is, ah, still making his way up to the command deck. I'm sorry for the delay."

"You dare insult us with this display of... of tardiness, you, pathetic green slimething! Find him or I-" the creature was interrupted by the loud clang of the command deck door sliding open. Zapp Branigan, the famed Captain of lore, meandered on to the deck and tugged at his uniform as he sat down.

"Darn belt always getting stuck on the handle. Kif, make a note to the quartermaster, I want all the handles on the heads replaced with something less grabby, and none of your objections this time mister!"

"Sir?"

"What?"

"The screen, sir..." Kif pointed at the Ruklisk was glaring in almost apoplectic rage. What was visible of his mouth seemed to be drawn back in an animalistic rictus, exposing mandibles and impossibly shaped teeth.

Zapp started, grabbed the arms of his chair. He leaned forward to look at the screen. "What in the hell is that thing?"

"Excuse me sir, but that is the Most Excellent Captain-Hunter-Slayer "Die Slowly and Scream While You Do It" of the Ruklisk ship Slagged-brain-juices, sir. He commands the entire Ruklisk second fleet."

"Oh. Oh really. An impressive name." Zapp rubbed his chin, a thoughtful look gracing his allegedly noble features. "This is part of that negotiation we're supposed to be out here for, is it?"

"Yes, sir." Kif risked a glance at the screen. The Ruklisk's spines had folded back, showing his full all-too-hideous face that consisted almost entirely of eyes and mouth, held together by a cadaverous looking stretch of bone and chitin. He seemed perplexed.

"I see. Well this should be easy enough I suppose. What is it you want? And make it snappy, I intend to be at the liberation bombardment on Erabask Three by oh six hundred."

The Ruklisk couldn't frown, but he managed to get the expression across in other ways. "You humans are reputed to be soft and... caring, like that Amphibiosan _koslety _you have cowering under your have surprised us, Captain Zapp Brannigan of the Nimbus. You may well be _Braw Nichan_, as your name suggests."

Zapp leaned toward Kif and raised his eyebrows. Kif sighed. "It means 'The one who will kill indiscriminately for the fun of it' sir. It's a high compliment in their language."

"Excellent!" Zapp leaned forward. "I declare these negotiations to be started. You will visit our ship, and we can discuss terms."

"Pathetic human, I visit you with hatred!" The screen blanked out. Zapp blinked at the sudden departure of the image and turned to look at Kif again.

"Did I say something wrong?"

"Actually sir, it pains me to say it, but you are perfect to negotiate with these people. He complemented you again."

"This just gets better and better. You see Kif, one day you'll learn that a captain has to be able to adapt himself to any situation. It's obvious High Command chose me for this mission for that precise reason."

Kif sighed again, and thought about the various ways he could disabuse Brannigan of that particular opinion. Bats featured heavily. And a mace. He looked down at the floor. "I... yes, sir."

"Make preparations for the meeting," Brannigan said, standing up. He looked around the command deck with what he probably thought was a commanding air. "Oh and Kif? I'll be taking a bath in fifteen minutes. See everything is in order will you?"

* * *

_Interstellar space is vast and empty, with an average of about five atoms of hydrogen per cubic light-year, so far apart that they might never come in contact with another particle before the end of the universe itself. Of course, averages being what they are, and the universe being what it is, the universal average can be completely unrelated to the local conditions, so that a single volume of space could have a vast cloud of hydrogen dense enough to allow interactions to take place in days rather than millenia. Rare, but not unknown._

_In such a cloud a single atom moving in a particular direction can set off a chain reaction, scattering more atoms, until a wave is formed, casting forth more hydrogen at its crest. Chaos being what it is, the wave could dissipate or it could strengthen entirely through Brownian motions. Rarer still. But when a single atom has suddenly strayed from its course for no reason, the rare might suddenly become commonplace..._

* * *

Zapp stepped out of his bath and waited for Lieutenant Kroker to wrap a towel around his waist. The little creature seemed to be scared of his very manly nature, presumably because he was so very pathetic, but that didn't worry Zapp; he knew what he was amazing, and it was right that the wimpiest and most pathetic of his crew acknowledged that. It put them in their place.

"Kif, remind me when our guests are arriving."

"Half an hour sir," the green-skinned alien said, slouching his shoulders even further at the sound of Zapp's voice. "The Captain-Hunter-Slayer will arrive first to ritually slaughter several of the crew, and then his delegation will follow on a second shuttle.

"Ahh, leading from the front, an admirable trait."

"Like you'd know sir..."

"What was that?" Zapp growled as he leaned over his Lieutenant. If it had been an insult it was an unaccustomed show of spine. Kif cowered and seemed to collapse in on himself.

"Nothing, sir. I was just clearing my throat." Kif sighed heavily. "You may be glad to know that the Ruklisk have made allowance for the fact that our crews don't like to die without reason, so they'll forgo the ritual slaughter when the Captain arrives this time. They are under the impression that it's an accounting thing."

"Accounting? What are they, bankers?"

"Actually sir..."

"Never mind, bring out my dress uniform, the one with the extra medals. We shall await them on the command deck."

* * *

_The strange plasmatic wave had travelled for almost a month before it reached the same volume of space as the Nimbus and the Ruklisk vessel, just motes against the black canvas of space from the perspective of the wavefront. It carried on, exotic and dangerous, by sheer chance aimed directly at the DOOP starship._

* * *

"The first Ruklisk vessel is aboard now, sir," an ensign called from the comms console. Zapp nodded, stern and commanding for perhaps the first time in his life. He turned to leave the command deck and made his way down to the main hangar.

* * *

_Outrigger engines on any craft are always vulnerable, protruding well beyond the bulk of the ship and dangerously close to whatever shielding that ship might have. Sometimes they have their own shields, but what use are they when they're switched off?_

_The hydrogen cloud had coalesced into a plasma now, hot and fast, trailing a faintly glowing string of quarks and strange matter in its wake. The _Nimbus _loomed across its trajectory, her starboard engine straddling the plasma-sphere's path like a closed gate._

* * *

Zapp and Kiff entered the hangar bay adjunct just before the Captain-Hunter-Slayer, who was waving a ceremonial slaughtering knife at the nervous guards and laughing maniacally. A small diplomatic corps team stood off to one side of the room. Cowered, more like. Only Zapp seemed undeterred by the mad alien and his weapon. He squared his shoulders and walked toward the Ruklisk, raising his DOOP ceremonial sword in salute.

The Ruklisk's eyes glinted. "So, human, do you know of the game of _klatikh_?"

Zapp's stride faltered. He glanced toward the diplomats, who seemed even more worried at the mention of the word. "Kla...tick?"

"It is best rendered as 'The game where two combatants poke each other with sharp things until one gives up and runs away to die,' Kif offered from behind a chair. His hands tightened their grip on the back of the seat.

"Ahh." Zapp's sword wobbled. Sweat began to bead his brow.

"What is the matter, human. Are you not _Braw Nichan_?"

* * *

_An ashen-faced ensign noticed the plasma wave only a moment before it impacted the engine. He didn't even have time to sound general quarters. The super-heated elemental gas splashed against the hull of the Nimbus, swinging her gently to port, doing very little visible damage but sending spears of high-energy radiation down into the engine's core. The mechanisms reacted, performing the mechanical equivalent of a tickly cough. A burp of thrust knocked the ship into a small spin, for which the Nimbus' guidance computers took almost a second to compensate before she steadied again. A hundred systems suffered minor malfunctions that cascaded through the ship. Life support vented odorous but non-toxic gas into the galley, all the lights on deck seventeen went out, whilst those on deck eleven turned a lurid pink. Deck five suddenly smelled of elderberries. The ship's artificial gravity fluttered for a moment..._

* * *

The deck lurched beneath their feet, sending the guards staggering. Kif leapt for the floor, whilst the Ruklisk, quadrupedal, stayed rock-steady against the shifting gravity field. Zapp waved his arms around wildly to try and maintain his balance. He slipped forward, his sword-hand dipping. The blade impacted just below the Ruklisk's heart, piercing his secondary lungs and spleen. A gout of bright orange blood shot across Zapp's face and he cried out in terror. The diplomatic corps ran screaming from the room.

For a moment there was silence. Then the general quarters alarm sounded, prompting the guards to suddenly decide they were needed elsewhere. They abandoned the room and ran for their duty posts.

Kif risked a peek. Zapp was still poised in a classic striking pose, the sword embedded up to half its length in what passed for the Ruklisk's chest. Orange ichor and strange fluids dripped from the wound.

The Ruklisk began to laugh. He continued laughing as he pulled the sword from his chest and tossed it aside. "You win, human. You win! A killing blow so early. You are truly Braw Nichan! We concede to all of your demands on the condition that we are allowed to maintain a presence around Eridani.

"You fight well, Braw Nichan," the Ruklisk said, his voice gurgling a little as fluid began to fill his lungs. He patted a clawed, grasping hand against Zapp's shoulder. Zapp was slowly pulling himself back to a normal stance, though his face was a mask of terror and shock, and paled at the alien touch. "You send back your diplomats, and I send our negotiators. They will sort details."

Still laughing, the Captain-Hunter-Slayer turned, retrieved the sword and passed it back to a shivering Zapp, along with his knife. "You keep this knife, Braw Nichan. You remember your victory. And mine, as I go to my honourable death." He turned and stomped from the adjunct, trailing blood across the floor, and returned to his ship, which departed a moment later.

Zapp stared at the blood on his hands and whimpered.

"Sir?" Kif stood up, dusting himself down. He tugged at Zapp's sleeve. "Sir, are you sure that was wise?"

"I... stabbed... it..."

"Sir, the Eridani system-"

"I won!" Zapp tossed the sword aside and held out the Ruklisk knife, a terrible curved blade, devoid of any decoration. A killing blade. "I won us a victory, and I didn't even have to send men to die for it?"

"Yes, it's something of a first," Kif said before an exaggerated sigh. He tried to catch Zapp's eye. "But sir, it might not be the victory-"

"I got us our concessions didn't I? What's at Eridani anyway? Just a colony planet and a few gas mines, it's nothing!"

"It gives them a strategic base less than thirty light-years from earth sir."

"Nonsense, they didn't talk about a base, just a 'presence'." Zapp held up the knife again. "I think I'll get this framed. Kif, call out the carpenter."

"We don't have one sir. Now, Erid-"

"No carpenter? But this is a man-o-war!" Zapp gripped the knife's handle. He looked at the orange mes on the floor. "There has to be at least one member of this crew that can turn a lathe. Find him, and get him to make me a frame for this gift."

"I..." Kif knew better than to argue. He could probably find a presentation box in the stores somewhere. "I'll see what I can do sir. But please, listen to me. The Ruklisk-"

"Are now our allies, Lieutenant. Don't you see what we have won today? Our implacable foe, brought low by the great and humble Captain of the _Nimbus. _Ohh they might give me more medals for this one Kif. A promotion even. Commodore Brannigan..." Zapp drifted off across the room, oblivious to the gore dripping down his front. "No, Admiral Zapp Brannigan at your service sir. Why yes, I was responsible for the negotiations with the Ruklisk. Your daughter you say?"

Kif had known far all his life in a low-level sort of way. Daily terror at the thought of Zapp going over the edge and actually becoming even less competent than he already was haunted him, but that was nothing compared to what he felt now. He glanced at the deck, making a note to have a yeoman clean it up, and made his way up to the command deck, his heart now dreading the brave new future.

Fate, he mused, was a capricious creature. If the ship hadn't suffered its apparent malfunction, Zapp would probably be nursing a few scratches, or might even be seriously wounded and blessedly unable to command anything for a few weeks. The Ruklisk would probably be drawing back to prepare for another century of cold war. Now they were allies? Kif had a hard time believing it would last.


	2. shopping  Or how I learned

**Chapter Two – $hopping – Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love Credit**

Night in New New York was bright and dark at the same time, or a darkness enhanced by the studding of garish advertising and signage that cluttered the streets at every level, enticing pedestrians with porn, booze, book-reading festivals – oddly popular these days – and religion of every stroke. Fry wandered past it all, trying to make sense of her newly re-arranged priorities. The lustre everything had held for the old Fry seemed to pale and wash away as she came close to her old haunts. The bars she hung out in had a different feel to them. Men, and a few women, looked at her in a different way as she entered and left. Once or twice she tried wiggling her hips our pouting a little to see what the reaction would be, but after the first few jeers and cat-calls it became boring, and more than a little disturbing in some cases. She didn't bother advertising herself after that.

Not everything about her had changed. Book-reading still didn't appeal, as much as she tried to force herself to consider it, and the bars, despite all the new problems, were still a good place to hang out and get drunk.

Fry found she missed some of the other entertainment, but in an abstract sort of way. A distant, nostalgic way, like you'd miss an old book or an worn out pair of pants. They held almost no attraction at all now.

She wandered the streets of the city until the night was deep and the crowds began to thin out. An address rested in her pocket, a large warehouse near the docks. With a bravado she didn't quite feel, perhaps some sort of hormonal remnant filtering out of her body, Fry stepped across the street to the warehouse entrance.

A burly man in a rough coat leaned on the wall by the door, sharing a cigarette with a low class hookerbot. They straightened up as Fry approached. The man pulled at his coat and winked at her. "What do yous want in this part of town lady," he said with a cheeky, and somewhat leery smile.

"I'm here for the bout," Fry said, glancing at the hookerbot, who seemed to be holding her arms in a peculiar fashion. She took out the scrap of paper and held it up in front of the man's nose. "Bender Rodriguez's party."

"Rodriguez you says? Good robot family, don't knows whats they would be doing in _heres_." The man scratched his nose and looked over the paper, pausing now and then to run his finger along the bigger words. He nodded at the hookerbot and stepped aside, pulling the warehouse door open a fraction. Darkness filled the void behind the door. "Enjoys your visit miss," he said, waving Fry inside. The door closed, plunging Fry into a darkness so deep she could almost believe she was back in her coma again. But then another door cracked open, casting a bright yellow light in the gloom, and accompanied by a loud, continuous roar and the sound of revving engines.

Fry edged toward the light and the door, which opened on to a huge arena pit sunk into the floor of the warehouse. Tiers of seats lined the pit and crawled up the walls of the arena thirty high or more, and were filled to the top with people of all shapes and sizes, mostly robots, with humans and then a few of the more exotic aliens in amongst them. In the central pit a pair of battle-bots, modified to have a superficial resemblance to the female form, scrambled across a slick of oil almost three feet deep to grapple clumsily for the crowd.

Fry spotted Bender almost instantly, standing up about half way up the tiered seats, right on the centre-line of the pit itself, where presumably he could get the best view. She briefly wondered how he'd managed to score such good seats, then realised she probably didn't want to know.

Fry pushed and jostled through the crowd, conscious of the body she was still getting used to in some ways. She got close to Bender and saw he was surrounded by hookerbots and hangers-on – somehow, he was making it big tonight. She didn't know how, or why, but he was. This worried Fry for some reason. She always remembered him as being a bit of an ambitious loser. Perhaps he was just having a run of good luck.

"Fry!" Bender waved to her, gold rings glinting on his fingers. It was like him to be so ostentatious whenever he got the chance. Fry pushed her way past the last of the crowd and stumbled to a halt beside Bender. "You made it then?"

"No, you're just imagining I'm here," Fry said sarcastically. She suddenly felt very tired. Bender motioned for her to an upholstered seat to his right, before clunking down in his own seat. He took out a cigar.

"Mind if I smoke?"

"Go right ahead." Fry frowned. "Wait, you've never asked before."

"You've never been a woman before," Bender replied. He leaned back and blew a few smoke-rings. "So what do we call you now? Just out of interest you understand, I mean, you'll have to get new birth certificates and everything so it all has to be in order..."

Fry folded her arms and glared at him. "You are not going to get anywhere near my papers, Bender, I have a credit rating to think about. It was bad enough when you faked the Professor's social security details to get that car."

"Yeah, well-"

"Which you then proceeded to lose in the bay!"

"But... but it was _fun_!" Bender whined. He sagged, or did the best robot equivalent, and shook his head. "Fry, you've changed. And not just in the interesting physical way either. You're... different."

Fry realised how tense she had become and tried to let herself relax. Man. She was fast turning into a real bitch. "I'm sorry Bender, it's... hard, adjusting to all of this. You're right, it _was_ fun."

They sat back and watched the muddy pit for a while. The battle-bots clashed again, grunting with anachronistically feminine voices as gouts of oily mud shot into the air. Somewhere under the stands, outside the arena, Fry could hear powerful engines revving and robot voices shouting to each other over the noise. The silence between them lengthened as the battle was fought to something like a stalemate.

"Philippa," she said eventually. Fry turned to look at Bender, who seemed to be unusually interested in his cigar. "I mean, it's practically the same name anyway."

"Easy enough to change I guess," Bender said. He drew on the stub of his cigar and then tossed it into the ring, before pulling a new one from his chest compartment and lighting it in a single fluid motion. "Philippa J Fry. Kinda neat."

"H'yeah..." Fry smiled at the name. It felt adventurous, but safe at the same time.

"You just decided that now huh? I suppose Leela didn't have anything to do with it?"

"Nothing." Newly minted Philippa Fry shook her head and stared at the pit. Leela. She was... "Bender-"

"Quiet, they're starting the next round." Bender sat back as the two fembattlebots advanced on each other again, now holding large overstuffed pillows. "Oh man this is the best bit. They hit each other with those giant pillows, and the feathers go everywhere!"

"That's... great."

"Come on Fry, even humans enjoy this bit. You used to love it!"

Fry peered at her feet and cast her mind back to _him_. He had enjoyed it. Now, she found it amusing, but distantly so. Weren't women supposed to be the emotional ones? "I... can't..."

"Fry, you _have_ changed." Bender stubbed out his cigar and swallowed it. He gave Fry a worried look. "You aren't going to tell me it's degrading to watch this are you? I'd hate that."

"I wasn't," Fry said. She put her hand on Bender's stumpy claw and smiled at him. "I just don't know if I'll enjoy it as much as I used to."

Bender coughed up his cigar and lit up again with a loud sigh. "That's so sad. Go for it baby, hit her again!" The crowd roared their approval as a torrent of feathers shot across the arena, burying one of the combatants in an implausibly fluffy pile. The feathers stuck fast to the slick coating of oil on both battlebots.

Fry giggled to herself at the sight of the robots, which were now trying to hold on to each other for support on the slippery ground. She turned to Bender again. "Oh, it's not so bad surely? Having a female friend has to have some advantages?"

"The only advantages I can see would be if I could film you and Amy making out." Bender turned his head very slowly toward Fry. "People pay a lot of money for that sort of thing."

Fry gaped at Bender. The old Fry would have jumped at the chance – though Bender wouldn't have wanted to film _that. _Now? "Absolutely not!" The force of her own reply shocked her; but it was nothing to what she said next. "I'm not a lesbian."

Bender's eyes rattled in their sockets. "The Fry I know would never have missed an opportunity to make out with a girl like Amy. You... you _are_ Fry, aren't you?"

Fry nodded mutely. Even when she'd felt a momentary crush on the doctor outside the hospital she'd figured it was just a thing – she'd had similar feelings for almost an entire hour in high-school once, thanks to raging hormones and the mistaken swapping of a Dr Pepper for a Coke – but this was something completely different. _I'm not attracted to women at all!_ The change was more profound than she'd thought. She was a _woman_. Not a man in a woman's body. Not a freak. A _woman_, and memories be damned.

Bender watched her impassively, smoke trailing from the seam of his mouth as he neglected to exhale. Fry couldn't lock down her feelings again. Something welled up inside her, a strange sort of fearful dread of what she had become and what she had lost. "Oh god... I think... I think I'm going to _cry_..."

"What, _now?_" Bender stood up in a panic. He grabbed Fry by her collar and dragged her from the stalls. "I'm not letting a woman-friend of mine be seen crying in public. Think of the damage to my reputation!"

"What reputation?" Fry sniffed, rubbing her watery eyes as she almost flew over the seats, trailing behind Bender like a cometary tail. Bender turned and seemed to grimace at her.

"Cutting remarks too. This is worse than I thought."

Fry sobbed without knowing why, though by the time they reached the arena doors she felt a little better. Perhaps some fresh air would help. Bender kicked the door aside and unceremoniously deposited Fry in the twilight of the reception area. He turned back to the arena.

"Wait, Bender." Fry stood up and put a hand on Bender's shoulder. He turned his head to look at Fry, eyes just a little sad. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine... Fry. Fine." Bender turned and sighed. He looked Fry in the face. "But I think I've lost my best friend."

Fry shivered at the look on Bender's face. What little there was of it anyway. She screwed up her eyes. "You haven't lost me Bender, I'm just a little further away."

"Maybe."

"Try me again in a few months." Fry patted Bender's shoulder. Then, without thinking, she leapt forward and wrapped a quick hug around Bender's neck. The robot jerked back in surprise and yelled something incoherent, but then seemed to relent. He hesitantly patted Fry on the back a couple of times. Fry pushed back from the hug and swallowed, trying not to let a tear out. "You'll be okay?"

"I... bah." Bender waved an arm and pulled away from Fry. He pushed back through the door and paused on the threshold, where the light gleamed off his polished skin, surrounding him in a vague golden halo. Bender gave Fry one last look and then pulled the door behind him, casting Fry back into the darkness.

"That could have gone better," Fry muttered to the shadows. She slouched from the room, gave the doorman and his hookerbot friend a casual wave as she left the build and made her way out into the night.

* * *

Leela heard the bell, but her bed was so warm and soft she didn't want to bother answering. Then the bell rang again, and finally someone started pounding on the door, lurching her from a really nice advertisement where she... huh. Gone.

With a grimace Leela crawled across the bed and glared at the clock. "Three in the morning? Who in hell..." She pulled on a nightgown and stumbled through the half-lit apartment to the door, which rattled under another pounding. "I'm coming, I'm coming, hold your damn buggalo!"

Leela peered through the peeper. A woman stood outside, red hair trailing and wet from rain. "Fry?"

"Leela, you have to let me in, I didn't know where else to go!" Fry wailed. She pressed her hands against the door and peering into the peeper from the other side.

"Fry what..." Leela unlocked the door and yanked it open. She ushered the distraught woman inside. "What happened to you. You're soaked!"

"I know, it's been raining since two," Fry said. She sniffled and sat down; Leela shuddered at the thought of what all that water would do to her brand new couch. "I think I fell out with Bender, and I've been wandering around the streets since midnight because I don't want to go home and find him mad at me..."

"Oh honey..." Leela sat down next to Fry and pulled her into a hug. Fry sniffled and nervously tugged at her hair. "You don't need to worry about Bender. He's probably forgotten about it already."

"Really?"

"I've learned that things we might take really seriously are like water off a duck's back for some men, especially a manbot like Bender." Leela said, stroking Fry's head. Water puttered and dripped on to the couch and her pants. _Better get a towel..._ "Most men are like that really, they don't seem to care, or their priorities are just different. Well you should know, you used to be one."

Fry raised her eyebrows stared at Leela for a moment, then put her head in her hands. Leela let out a sigh; it probably wasn't the best time to remind her about that, she realised, just a little too late. "I'm sorry Fry-"

"Philippa." Fry looked up, and tears were in her eyes again. "I'm not Fry, not the way I was. Bender said it tonight, I _have_ changed, and a lot more than I thought. Leela..."

She didn't break down in tears, which Leela would have only found embarrassing, but the poor woman did curl up against Leela's shoulder, keening into her nightgown and wiping her eyes occasionally. Leela patted Fry's shoulder and rocked her back and forth a few times, but eventually she had to do something; her gown was getting soaked. "I'm sorry F... Philippa. I have to get a towel. In fact you should probably get out of these wet things."

Fry tensed up. "I can't do that!"

"What?"

"I... because we're gonna have sex!" she wailed. Fry threw herself on to the couch and curled up into a tight ball, shivering, whilst Leela stood by and stared at her friend. She reached out to touch Fry's shoulder but Fry shied away from the touch and wailed loudly. Leela shrugged and wandered off to find a towel.

When she returned Fry was still wrapped up in a sniffling huddle on the couch, completely ruining the upholstry. Leela grimaced. "Come on, you have to get dry or you'll catch your death."

"But we-"

"Damnit, Fry, stop that!" Leela threw the towel over the huddled woman and sat down. "What on earth gave you the idea that I'd even be interested in- oh no, no I didn't mean it like that!" She sat back as Fry started bawling. After a minute or two she pulled a box of tissues out from behind the couch and started handing them over. By the third she was resting her chin on one hand, staring at the wall as she tried to blank out the wretched snivelling. She wondered if this was how men... no. That wasn't really fair. Fry was not in the best frame of mind.

Eventually they were faced with a pile of tissues large enough to qualify for their own height marker. Fry stared dejectedly at the pile, her eyes puffy and red, sniffing occasionally. Leela rubbed her back a few times and peered into the empty box. "This is what I get for splashing out on triple quilt..." she dropped the empty box on the floor and turned to Fry. "Now what's this rubbish about us having sex?"

Fry blinked her eyes and looked at Leela as if she'd only just noticed she were there. "Oh, that. Well... it's kind of embarrassing." Fry pinched her finger and twisted at the end as if it would open. "There's a lot of films, uh, porn films, where a girl goes to see her friend, and somehow she gets wet, and then the friend gets her to change out of her clothes and then they..." she glanced over her shoulder at the bedroom. "I couldn't do that. I'm not..."

"Well it's not likely even if you could and were. Fry, this is _me_ you're talking about. If it was likely before, it..." she paused, running the sentence through her head, but there was no way to put it that wouldn't result in using up another box of triple quilt. She sighed. "Look, you need to get out of those wet clothes and you probably need a shower to warm up. There's some clean robes in the bathroom." Leela stood up, taking Fry's arm and guiding her up as well. She gently propelled her toward the bathroom. "I'll make us some coffee and then we can talk."

"About what?" Fry paused in pulling off her coat and looked at Leela.

"Everything. This is going to be a whole new experience for you." Leela smiled and would have winked but for her single eye. She rubbed her chin and yawned. "I guess I won't be getting any sleep now anyway, so we might as well make use of the time."

Fry sort-of smiled and slipped into the bathroom. Leela waited until she could hear the sound of running water before she moved again. She yawned, stretched, and then glared at the water-stained couch for a moment. "I sure hope that thing won't show up when it's dry..." The towel she had brought in was a little damp but it brought out the worst of the water, reducing the stain from horrendous to merely intolerable. Leela grimaced.

Fry – Philippa – seemed to be a walking sack of neuroses and emotional baggage, and just a step away from a nervous breakdown which, given the circumstances, probably wasn't too surprising. Leela threw the towel into the laundry basket and meandered toward the kitchen, trying not to let sleep trip her up.

Sex. What a stupid thing to think about. Maybe if "she" had been a "he", but then she still was he, at least in memory... Leela frowned. She didn't like the implications of that particular thought, so put it out of her mind as she began making the coffee. Still, it might be prudent to see if there was a way to turn Fry back.

Fry spent a long time in the shower, even singing at one point in a wobbly mezzo-soprano that never quite managed to be pitch-perfect. She eventually emerged looking much calmer – and warmer – wearing an old blue robe that was far too big for her. Leela felt a pang of jealousy as she realised that Fry had a slightly better figure than her, or at least a slimmer one. She dropped an extra lump of sugar into Fry's coffee before placing it on the coffee table.

Fry slumped down on the now-dry couch and groaned in relief. "That is so much better," she said, eyes closed and a big smile on her face. She pulled the robe a little tighter before grabbing the coffee Leela had left for her. "I'm sorry about what I said before, Leela. It was stupid."

"It was fear talking. I know I've said it before but you're still getting used to yourself. I can't imagine what it would be like to have a bunch of male memories in _my_ head, but I bet it wouldn't be pretty."

"No. It isn't." Fry took a sip of her coffee and grimaced. "Did you put extra sugar in this?"

"Certainly not," Leela said, looking away for a moment. She managed to keep her blush hidden, but it was probably a good idea to change the subject. "So what happened with Bender? You said you'd upset him."

Fry sat back, wrapping her hands around the coffee. Slender hands, Leela noticed, with long fingers that she could only dream of having. She forced herself to look at Fry's face.

"Bender. He said he'd lost his best friend. Do you think he meant me?"

"He could have meant his last bottle of booze for all you know, Philippa." Leela paused to see Fry's reaction. She smiled at hearing the name. Leela smiled too before going on. "He's worried about losing a friend but you can prove he doesn't have to worry about it. And he wouldn't be _that_ worried anyway. He's a man. No, he's a man_bot_.He's also Bender."

"But he seemed so vulnerable."

"Fry... Philippa." Leela shook her head and stared at her coffee while she ordered her thoughts. "One thing you'll have to learn now is that a lot of men will seem vulnerable when they're actually hiding emotions they don't want to acknowledge. Bender... Bender is trying to come to terms with this as much as you are, and he's doing it the only way he knows, by putting it out of his mind. If that means pretending he's lost his friend for a bit then that's how he'll do it.

"You just have to let him work through it for a bit. _Don't_ try and hurry it up either. I made that mistake so many times with men and look where it got me."

"Oh I don't know, you seem to be doing all right," Fry said, looking around the apartment, which had been spruced up quite a bit since the last time she'd been there. She fingered the robe. "You have a lot of clothes. All I have is a few shirts and a pair of pants that barely fit any more. You've got a reasonably nice home, friends, a good job..." she shrugged and drank more coffee. "And you have parents who are actually around to talk to. What do I have?"

Leela swallowed and looked into Fry's eyes. She touched her hand. "You have me."

Fry smiled, though it was a little sad. She put the coffee down and took Leela's hand. "A few weeks ago I would have done anything to hear you say that."

"I know. For what it's worth, and for all it's different, I'm saying it now."

"Thanks Leela. That means a lot." Fry retrieved her coffee and sat back in the couch with a contented smile. "I never imagined it could be like this. Talking, I mean, without having to try and convince you I was worth talking to."

Leela raised her eyebrow. "Fry, you were always worth... well okay sometimes I had a little trouble relating to you, but you never hid your emotions from me. I appreciated that more than I let on. Not even Sean wore his heart on his sleeve like you do. Did. Um..."

"There, now you know how I feel all the time these days. It's so confusing." Fry glanced into her cup and put it down empty. She wrapped her arms around herself as if she was cold. "There are times when I almost feel like I'm in a dream and about to wake up, and everything will be back to normal, and there are times when I think that all the _old_ me was just a dream, and that _this_ is normal. Leela..." she closed her eyes and swallowed a few times. "I... I don't know what to do."

"Come here," Leela said, shifting over to sit next to Fry. She put her arms around Fry's shoulder and squeezed a little. "You shouldn't think about things like that. Right now you just need to get some rest. Tomorrow we'll go and talk to the Professor about this."

"I already tried that, he said it would take years to work it out." Fry sighed sadly. "Years? The way he talked about it, I'll never be able to go back."

_That might not be such a bad thing._ Leela banished the traitorous thought from her mind. "There's always a way, Fry. You just need to use a woman's touch."

* * *

"Absolutely not, there's no way I can do that. None!"

Leela balled her hands on the conference table and leaned toward Farnsworth with an ugly glare. "You have a responsibility to do the right thing, Professor. If you can't do it then-"

"I'm telling you it's impossible." Farnsworth swatted at the box in front of him, knocking it over. Pills flew everywhere. "I don't care what that quack says, I'm not putting those things up there! I refuse!"

"Your funeral," Leela said, rolling her eye. She glanced to her side, where Doctor Zoidberg was clicking his claws together and quietly crooning in his native language. Her gaze returned to Farnsworth. "The alternative is having Zoidberg here give them to you intravenously."

Farnsworth gulped hard. He began gathering up the pills, his hand firmly gripped around the box. "All right, but I warn you the results won't be pretty." He started pushing pills up his nose. Leela grimaced. It was only fortunate they weren't suppositories; The Professor would probably have started with them there and then.

"Well now that's out of the way, we can talk about Fry's predicament."

"Yes, yes, the poor dear..." Farnsworth smiled over at Fry, then sneezed. A pill ricocheted off the table and bounced off Zoidberg's shell. He looked up and made a questioning noise but Leela quieted him with a raised hand.

"Professor, Fry says you told him it would take years to figure out what happened."

"Oh yes. Centuries! I'd probably be dead long before I even worked out the basic theory. There's no point in even starting now."

"What if you don't need to work out the details though?" Leela paused to watch Farnsworth's reaction; nothing. His face was blank though, frankly, that wasn't unusual. "Why not just work out enough to re-create the conditions of the accident."

"What? That would be preposterous! It would mean adjusting the inverter coils on the matter transporter, re-aligning the grid matrix, not to mention cleaning the cheese off the planck delimiter arm..." Farnsworth seemed to go blank again, which was often the look he took on when he was thinking hard. "The possibility of intersecting the same universe is fairly small but that can be increased by allowing for our relative motion through the universe and adjusting the targeting bus... Leela!" Farnsworth stood up and gasped. More pills rattled from his nose. "You might actually have figured it out!"

"Really?

"H'yes, it's just a matter of getting the same situation and then letting it reverse itself. It's so simple only a dunderhead would think of it!"

Leela frowned. "Gee, thanks."

"Oh you're welcome," Farnsworth said with an idiot smile. He resumed pushing pills up his nose.

Fry slowly sat up, her face a mixture of hope and fear. "How long will it take?"

"Oh, several months, possibly even a year, there's so much to do. But it can be done! I shall begin at once!"

Fry and Leela high-fived and then hugged until Fry pulled back. "This means I have to spend the next year as a woman."

"You'll survive. Just stick with me," Leela said, stroking her elbow. "And don't get any silly ideas again."

"On my honour as a woman," Fry said, and then burst out laughing. She turned to the Professor with a wide grin. "So when are you starting?"

"Oh right now," Farnsworth said. He grunted, and sweat beaded his brow. "Or I would if I could move my legs. I told you those pills would be trouble."

Zoidberg stood up and put a claw to his chest. "Don't worry, I have what we doctors call a contingency for this." He walked across the room and grabbed an upright trolley from the wall, which he then slid across to Farnsworth. The professor grumbled as Zoidberg shoved the trolley under his feet.

"Ow! Watch it you imbecilic homaridae!"

"Just tell me which way is the lab and I should have you there in six to eight weeks," Zoidberg said, wheeling the Professor from the room. Fry watched them leave, then turned back to Leela with a smile.

"Thanks Leela, I owe you one."

"It's nothing, Fry." Leela paused and smiled. "Philippa."

Fry's smile faltered for a second. "I chose that name when I was sure I would be this way forever."

"You want to stop using it?" Leela tugged at her own elbow nervously. "If I offended you I'm-"

"No no, it's okay. It's fine, I like it. I _am_ a woman right now, I might as well be myself." Fry took Leela's hands in her own and smiled again. "Perhaps we should give everyone the news."

"News travels in this place faster than we could spread it," Leela replied, glancing over her shoulder. Almost on cue the door opened and Hermes emerged, carrying his customary briefcase, a grim expression on his face.

"What's hanging Hermes," Fry said with a smile. Hermes drew up short and stared at Fry in surprise.

"Great mother of all that's green and snaky, you _are_ a woman! I thought that cracked lobster creature was just rambling insane... This is wonderful news!"

"It... it is?" Fry asked, taken aback. She put her hands on her hips. "What's going on?"

"Oh nothing, just the possibility of a huge tax relief for hiring a new female employee. They have a quota now you know."

Leela gaped. "What, that's ridiculous!" She and Fry stared at each other.

"Not at all. By the way, Fry, you're fired. Also, you're hired again. Welcome to the team!" Hermes flipped open his briefcase and held several pieces of paper. "Sign this please, and this resignation letter, and finally this waiver for benefit to you from any potential tax breaks related to your employment that Planet Express might gain."

Fry examined the letter first, taking her time to read it carefully. "This thing says I'm leaving the company because of Irre...con...sile... that thing, differences. What differences?"

"You're employed as a man but you don't have man tings in your pants! That different enough?"

"Does it count if I'm still wearing boxer shorts?"

"Ooh." Leela took Fry's arm and moved her aside a little, ignoring Hermes' protest. "Are those really as comfortable as everyone says they are?"

"Well, when you're a guy they tend to ride up a bit and strangle-"

"Ladies, please!" Hermes rattled his fingers on the briefcase impatiently. Fry and Leela simultaneously let out a plaintive groan and then giggled at the coincidence. They turned to face Hermes; Fry sat down and looked over the papers again. "Everyting in order there?"

"Oh. I suppose it is. What the hell, I think I might even get paid a bit more." She signed the contract and the letter, ignoring the waiver much to Hermes' chagrin. He gave them both a pained smile as he neatly folded the waiver and slipped it into his pocket, then returned the other papers to the briefcase.

"Ladies." He closed the briefcase and carried on his way back to his office. Leela stifled a laugh and sat down with Fry.

Fry glanced at the door as it closed behind Hermes. "That was-"

"A coincidence," Leela finished. She screwed up her face for a moment as she thought, then: "I always had you down as more of a briefs guy."

"Oh." Fry looked around the room just in case someone was listening. "I was, mostly, but sometimes you just have to hang a little loose y'know? But then they crawl up and get all twisted at the back, and you just have to start adjusting them and then everyone's looking at you... they don't seem to be doing that now, though," she added thoughtfully, and stood up. Fry tapped a finger against her mouth as they made their way to the lounge. "Crawling up I mean. Not that I think people are looking at me or anything," she added quickly. "Still, I think I'm going to need some new clothes. These pants are far too long and until this morning I'd been wearing the same bra for nearly three days."

"Clothes? Oh no, that's definitely not my job. I'm moral support, emotional support, mental support... if it has support in it, that's my job. But not clothes."

"I'll come to you if I need a girdle then," Fry said.

"Hey!" Fry ran ahead of Leela's swipe and stuck out her tongue. Leela glared. "I'll have you know I... oh what's the use. Lets go see Amy before we kill each other."

As she and Leela passed through the door, Fry and Bender saw each other at almost the same moment. The robot turned, seemed to do a double take and leaped from his place on the couch. "Fry, you're here!"

He ran forward and grabbed Fry by the shoulders, rocking her back and forth. "You're here, I'm so glad! I thought I'd lost you!"

"I'm glad to see-"

"Never mind that, I have a guy I'm talking to who wants to buy ovaries. You have ovaries, right? Being a woman and all?" Fry's jaw dropped; she tried to reply but only managed to gurgle. Bender seemed to notice something was wrong. "If it's a problem for you, they're offering thirty grand a pop."

Leela interjected her arm between them. "No Bender."

"But-"

"No!" Bender sagged again. He gave Fry a pleading look, and for a moment Fry felt herself wondering...

"Aww..." Bender turned and slumped back toward the couch, muttering just loud enough to be heard. "It's not like you're going to be using them any time soon anyway. Stupid female solidarity..."

Leela took Fry's arm again and lead her toward the back of the room. "I hope you weren't thinking about actually doing that," she said quietly. Fry shook her head.

"No. Well. Thirty thousand dollars wouldn't be so bad, would it? It's only _one _ovary._"_

"Would you have sold your testicles when you were a man?" Leela pouted and thought about the question for a second. "Actually don't answer, I'm not sure I could take it. Come on, Amy must be around here somewhere."

They left Bender mumbling on the couch. He turned to watch them leave, a frown crushing his eyes in darkness.

* * *

Fry remembered Amy's shopping sprees from when they were dating, and the almost casual way she would throw money at clothes and shoes and accoutrements that she almost never wore. It was a shame that the two of them weren't the same size or the whole trip wouldn't have been needed. They weren't, though; she'd checked her measurements against what she remembered of Amy's and, incidentally, wasn't so jealous of her any more.

Leela was tagging along, of course. _Moral support_ seemed to be a full-time job. Amy had seemed a little cold when they arrived, declaring rather haughtily that Fry looked scruffy and poor, which was technically true – she'd never said it before though, or, if she had, Fry had never noticed. She tried to put it out of her mind. Fortunately Amy was too shallow to hold any real malice toward people and by the time they reached fifth avenue the three of them were happily chatting away. She almost felt normal. Almost. The feeling might have been easier to maintain if her pants weren't wide enough to fall down at the slightest provocation. The belt she had borrowed from Leela was only doing so much.

Fifth avenue. She remembered the street from old New York; it as very different. Wider, taller, like so much in this city, and cleaner. A lot cleaner. But, apart from that and the row of trees down the centre of the road that made it resemble a Parisian boulevard, it felt similar enough. Shops were the thing. Saks still had a huge department store there, though now it fought for dominance against Virgin/Ia Fashion and Food, Uptown Slob and the 'Momcorp General Apparel and Home Boutique'. For some reason it made Fry feel a little proud to see Saks still standing after so long, even though she'd never once been in the place.

They stopped in the shade of a tree and looked up at the glowing signs.

"So," Amy said after a moment. "Where do you want to go first?"

"Oh wherever you want, Amy. I'm kinda new at this." Fry looked up and down the avenue. The retail behemoths stood astride rows of smaller shops that jostled for position along the avenue frontage, selling everything from cheap clothes to electronics to games. Fry felt a distant longing.

"Mom's is out," Amy said, dragging Fry back to earth. She reflexively looked up at the big Mom logo hovering before a grand gothic-iron tower. Didn't seem very inviting anyway. "And Saks is where I go when I want to really splurge, so that's out right now too... so that only really leaves Virgin Aya."

"I thought it was 'Ear'," Leela said, staring at the sign. "Can't they just pick a name you can pronounce?"

"Gleesh! That's why I don't come shopping with you any more, Leela. You're always so farbeld picky about things!" Amy popped on a pair of shades and stalked toward Virgin/Ia in a huff. She grabbed Fry's arm, dragging her along in her wake. "Keep up with me if you want, Leela, but don't expect me to talk for at least five minutes!"

Fry shrugged at Leela as best she could and stumbled to keep up with Amy. She looked over her shoulder; Leela was following, but a little distance behind. Perhaps she knew something Fry didn't. "What are we getting first?"

"Underwear," Amy stated, maybe a little harshly. She paused at the doors and started counting off on her fingers. "Then we'll get you some pants, a few blouses, maybe a nice coat, some hats, a few pairs of shoes, some dresses, you need dresses if you're going out in the evening."

"Sounds-"

"Skirts, sarongs, _ghuptchas,_ dancing shoes, ball shoes, boots, riding trousers."

"Look I really appr-"

"Nightdresses, shifts, pyjamas, you'll need slippers too, and some swimwear-"

"Hold it, no way, I'm not spending all my money on clothes. I'm only going to be like this for a year at most and you're talking about enough clothes to last me a lifetime! I'll get some underwear and some pants that actually fit me... ok and maybe some shoes. And pyjamas." Fry paused and shook her head. "But that's it, nothing else."

"Damnit, you're as bad as Leela. Why can't I have someone who'll just go shopping with me?" She glared at Fry, then at Leela as she in turn arrived at the doors. "You people and your credit limits!"

Amy stormed through the door, grumbling in chinese as she disappeared into the depths of the store.

"So," Leela said after a moment. "Now you know."

"Yikes."

Leela leaned on the door. "Don't worry about it, five minutes in there and she'll be right as rain again. We can catch her up once she's hit the beachwear department."

Fry nodded slowly. She'd never understood it before and it seemed that she didn't quite understand it now. "So... you aren't going to spend a fortune on clothes too, are you?"

Leela just laughed and opened the door. "Come on, Philippa, time to learn what a woman does in here."

* * *

It turned out that mostly they argued, or at least Amy and Leela did. They were arguing by the time they reached the underwear and hosiery department, where Fry reckoned there were enough different species of women's underthings to keep a taxonomist busy for years. Or she would if she'd known what taxonomist meant; instead she just stared at the rows of flimsy garments in near-terror at the extreme volume of choice, and then turned to Leela and Amy for help. After another long argument the two managed to settle on fitting her with some fairly run-of-the-mill garments that were actually quite comfortable – though, Fry reasoned, that was probably because they were designed for her body now. She didn't tell her companions about the time she'd tried on her girlfriend's bra in college, not least because the thought made her brain hurt now.

With that sorted they made their way to the clothes that didn't embarrass her, though she did notice Leela make a quick detour into the menswear department. Leela returned looking faintly embarrassed herself, clutching a tightly wrapped packet. Fry could guess what was in it. Amy just looked mystified. Leela laughed nervously when she asked but didn't tell.

Pants, shorts, shoes, a few accessories – she gave in and bought a plain looking swimsuit, reasoning she'd have to swim at _some _point – and then Fry was suddenly incredibly bored with it all, especially the constant shouting over which exact style they had to pick, what colour matched her skin and how skanky something made her look. _She_ had what she wanted, but Amy seemed to want to keep going, moving from rack to rack like some sort of predator, while Leela seemed content to follow on behind offering sage criticism and derision. After a while Fry decided she'd had enough; she paused at the end of a row of leatherette dresses that probably had enough material between them to cover a single small woman and waited for Amy and Leela to move out of sight.

She quickly bolted for the elevators. Fortunately she had managed to keep all her purchases separate from the others and had them bagged up and paid for in no time, after which Fry skipped into a booth to change into some of it and was soon back out on the street, roaming up and down the boutiques and shops that seemed to go on without end.

Fry came to a stop outside a gaming store. Every kind of electronic entertainment was arrayed behind the great glass window. She pressed her face up to the glass and peered into the slightly dim interior, where shelf after shelf was filled with games of all sorts, and comic books, and just about everything else she'd ever dreamed about owning when she was a kid. Only better.

She trailed her hand along the window as she entered the shop and paused just beyond the threshold, adjusting to the atmosphere. Certain kinds of shop have certain kinds of smell and this one smelled right. She wandered down an aisle of shelved holding what looked like every comic book ever printed. A few of them seemed to be reprints of titles from the twentieth century; they held up well next to the more contemporary books. Fry fingered one of them for a moment and let memories slide around her mind...

A loud, nasal and somewhat arrogant voice broke her reverie. "Hey, can't you read the sign?"

Fry turned to the counter near the back of the shop. A fat, balding Neptunian in a faded blue shirt stood behind the counter, staring at Fry with barely concealed contempt. He pointed at a prominent sign on the back wall.

"No flashbacks in the store," Fry read slowly. "Oh. I'm sorry, it's just been so long since I saw some of these things."

"Oh really." The proprietor folded two of his arms and leaned forward to examine. "And if I were to ask how long, I expect you would tell me a hundred years! I cannot believe such lies would be promulgated within hearing-range of my perfectly preserved merchandise."

Fry wandered over to the counter, trailing her bags just off the floor. They were getting heavy. "Actually it's just over a thousand," she said, not quite leaning on the counter. The Neptunian seemed nonplussed but at the same time apparently pleased that she wasn't grubbying up his glass. Even if it was incorruptiglass. "I was frozen in the twentieth century."

"You're a Cryonaut?"

"If that's what they're calling it now, I guess so."

"This is... oh my, I hear about them, but I've never had one in my shop before. I cannot imagine... you were alive during the first golden age! Can I ask, did you ever meet Mr Stanley Comic?"

Fry frowned, trying to place the name. She looked down at the books again, spotting a copy of the single edition _New Justice Team_. She giggled at the way they'd drawn Leela and the muscle-bound idiot that was meant to be her. Or him. She couldn't quite make the connection with that parody of male virtue. It was actually relieving... oh yes! "You mean Stan Lee? Guy who invented Spider Man?"

"Yes, Stanley Co... wait, are you saying that we have his name wrong? This cannot be!"

"Don't sweat it, I get names wrong all the time. Even my own." Which was true, she did now. Philip or Philippa? Perhaps she should have picked something else. "No I didn't meet him, but I would have loved to if I'd had the chance. Probably. Comic-books were more of a hobby than an obsession. I was more into games."

The Neptunian looked her up and down. "Such a shame, you seemed for a moment as if you had potential. Still, you may be able to help me with something. I have a few editions in my vault that need to be identified, but I cannot for the life of me place their provenance."

"Well, _sure._" Fry smiled at the Neptunian, who gestured toward the back of the store with one arm.

* * *

Fry shivered in the vault. "Right. I understand why you keep it cool in here, but do we have to be in our underwear?"

"It is necessary to prevent a static fire," the Neptunian said matter-of-factly. He ran his fingers along shelved of neatly packed first editions and rare books. Fry watched him, hands wrapped around her shoulders against the chill air. "Also, I find it refreshing compared to that overheated steambath you call an atmosphere."

"Just don't get any ideas," she said. The Neptunian turned to her with a haughty stare.

"Miss Fry, to have any ideas regarding you I would need to see at least an extra pair of arms. Though, I have to admit, your skin is turning a rather charming shade. Now..." He held up a pair of books in slim plastic envelopes. "What can you tell me about these? I do not recognise the style and the plotting seems incredibly overblown and illogical. For the record, they turned up in a dig in Alabama."

Fry looked at the books. They were ancient, crudely printed on crinkled cheap pulp that was almost black at the edges, badly drawn, consisting of a dozen or so tiny strips originally printed for the palm-sized books that Fry remembered being shoved into her face more times than she could count. "Oh lord, will that man never leave me in peace?"

"You recognise them?"

"Oh yeah, I guess they made a compilation of the damn things after I left. My advice? Shoot them into the sun."

* * *

Leela and Amy eventually found Fry slumped in a bench outside a grubby-looking comic-book store, sucking on an ice-cream and watching life pass by along Fifth avenue. She had several bags on top of the Virgin/Ia-branded carry-bags, and a couple of plain cardboard boxes. Fry waved to them as they approached and then returned to her ice-cream with relish. Amy gawped at the extra purchases.

"Fry, what's this? You bought things without me?"

Fry shrugged and continued licking her ice-cream. "I saw a few things I wanted," she said and turned to look at the shop. The Neptunian owner waved at her from the window; Fry waved back and winked. "Nice man."

"Fry, please tell me you didn't do anything stupid." Leela sat down next to her friend and pulled the ice-cream away for a moment. "You were just shopping right?"

"Well, I did help him sort a few of his comic-books." She glanced at the pile of goods next to her, which Amy had started to finger through. "Apart from that all I did was buy a lot of stuff from him. It's weird, normally when I go out I'll buy one or two things and then go home again. Now, I got a new games console, you see, so I had to have a few games to go with it. Then I figured I'd better get an extra set of game-pads and a wheel, because there's a racing game in there, and then I thought I should get the little three-dee goggle attachment that went with it, and after that I sort of got a bit carried away. I hope Bender doesn't mind getting a new home theatre system tomorrow..."

They stared at him. Leela rubbed her face and blinked. "My god," she said eventually, staring at the pile of tat. "I hate to say it, Fry, Philippa even, but you're more like Amy than you realise."

"I hope that was a compliment," Amy said. She pulled a box from one bag and peered at it. "Is this the new eOdel player? They aren't out for another month! How did you get it?"

"In there," Fry said, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb. "You go to all these designer places that don't buy in new gadgets until they're actually released, so they can hike up the prices for brainless, uh..." Fry's voice trailed off as Amy stared at him. Fortunately she seemed more interested in getting her hands on the eOdel than being insulted. "Places like..." she looked over her shoulder at the sign above the shop. "Places like Mandroid's Cellar here tend to have pre-release stock for real nerds to drool over. All I had to do was prance around in my underwear for half an hour."

"Fry!" Leela and Amy both cried in unison together.

"Have you no shame?" Leela added.

"Yeah, he's, like, forty or something," Amy said a moment later, peering at the window. "Though his nose is kinda cute..."

Fry looked genuinely hurt. She blinked a few times, looking between Amy and Leela as if she didn't know what to say. "It's not like you think. He was in his underwear as well-"

"That isn't _better_ Fry." Leela folded her arms. "I can't believe you. You said you were different, but you're just like Bender was. I... Fry, how _could_ you!"

"Leela, just lis-"

"No, this... ugh!" Leela stood up and would have walked away if Amy hadn't caught her arm. "What?"

"Leela, wait."

They both turned to look back at Fry. Her lower lip was quivering. She sniffed. Leela closed her eye and sighed loudly. "I can act too you know."

"But all he wanted was help with his comic-book collection," Fry wailed. She put her head in her hands and sobbed. "All I wanted to do was help, I didn't think you'd be mad at me for that! I'm not like Bender. I'm not- going- to- auugh-"

Amy and Leela looked at each other again, eyebrows raised. They turned away from Fry and Amy grimaces. "Quite a bawler isn't she?"

"All right, I can't act that well," Leela muttered, casting an embarrassed glance over her shoulder. People were staring. It seemed there were still a few things this newly minted girl needed to know about how to behave. "Perhaps it really was innocent."

"We all make mistakes Leela," Amy said, giving her friend a pointed look. Leela sighed again and turned around.

"Philippa..." The name seemed to shock Fry out of her mope. She looked up at Leela, eyes red but not too watery, and swallowed. "I'm sorry for shouting at you."

Fry managed a wan smile. She rubbed her eyes and sat a little more upright. "It's-" she choked, swallowed. "It's okay Leela, I guess I should have thought about it first."

Leela and Amy pushed the bags to one side and sat down on either side of Fry. "I sometimes get that way too, you know," Amy said. She looked at Leela and winked. "It's because you're so impulsive and carefree. Some people don't quite understand that."

Fry looked up at Amy. "I don't know, I never bought five-thousand dollars worth of stuff before. Is this how it is for you all the time?"

Amy nodded, but Leela shook her head. "Not everyone is a stereotype, Philippa. Some people are-"

"Frumpy!" Amy leaped up from the bench cackling. Unfortunately, as she turned her foot caught in one of Fry's bags and she tripped, landing on her butt. "Ai!"

"Serves you right for interrupting," Leela said with a triumphant smile. She turned back to Fry. "Now Philippa, about now is where I suppose I should tell you to be more sensible and stop being so impulsive, but I'm not going to."

"You're not?" Amy and Fry both asked in unison. Amy pulled herself up off the floor.

"You're not going to be your usual stuck-in-the-mud killjoy self?" Amy looked around. "Fry, you stay here while I look for the real Leela."

Amy made a show of looking behind the benches before stalking off toward a tree, which she rounded several times before turning to look back at Leela and Fry, hands on her hips.

"I don't understand," Fry said as Amy returned. "Am I doing it wrong or something?"

"I can't tell you what to do, Philippa. Well I can, when we're at work or you're doing something stupid or life-threatening, but apart from that." She squeezed Fry's hand and then patted it gently. "You're your own woman. If you want to get a discount by 'prancing' then, I suppose, it's up to you. Just don't expect me to get involved."

Fry frowned. "If that's what you think..." she made a show of drying her eyes on her shirt. "Oh I'm such a wreck, I'm no good at this. How will I survive a whole year?"

"The same way we all do," Leela said. Amy perked up.

"Oh you mean she'll get a trust-fund too?"

Leela let her eye rest on Amy until the younger girl shied away. She leaned across Fry and grabbed one of the bags. "Okay, we might as well get you home. It's getting late. Amy?"

"Hn?" Amy was standing a short distance away, looking up at the sky. She suddenly pointed up. "_Wuh de tyen ah!_"

Leela looked up. A gobbet of orange-pink light was moving across the sky at an alarming speed. "Too bright to be a ship, too slow to be an asteroid..." she glanced around the sky. "Look there's another one."

They watched the strange objects hurtling across the sky until they faded to nothing near the visible horizon. Fry clutched at her massed bags with a strange feeling growing in her gut. Something about the light felt familiar.

"We'd better get back, this has to have made the news," Leela said. She grabbed a pile of bags. "Come on, we'll call a cab."


	3. Hot Coffee

**Chapter Three – Hot Coffee**

They reached the Robot Arms in record time thanks to a little creative driving by their Cab-bot, and despite a detour to drop off Amy's oversized pile of shopping. Fry even left him a tip.

Inside, they found Bender clutching a beer on the couch, surfing channels and mumbling occasionally about deliveries. He didn't turn when they closed the door.

"What's up losers?" Bender intoned, taking another draught of his beer. He looked up at the clatter of bags and boxes dropping to the floor, patted his chest compartment and winked at Leela. "Hey, want me to help you with that?"

"No I'm good," Leela said, shuffling a few bags closer to the wall and placing her own modest purchases on top of the pile. Amy sat down on a box and glared at Bender.

"What about you Fry, want a hand with your junk? Oh wait that's right, you don't have any now!" Bender laughed out loud until he saw Fry's faint look of confused disgust. He looked at Fry again. "You see, because you're not a man any more, and junk is... and... aaww come on Fry, it's funny!"

"I don't get it."

"That's probably because you've spent so much time with Sir Grumps-a-lot there," Bender retorted, waving his beer at Leela. She rolled her eye and folded her arms. "Come on Fry, you always used to laugh at my crap jokes. What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," Fry said. "Well, everything. I'm sorry, Bender, I really am. I don't want to lose our friendship but I'm in a really weird place right now. I just need a little space. Time to... to adjust, you know?"

"Time to adjust, huh?" Bender stood up. He threw his unfinished beer into his chest and faced Fry head-on. "A little space, huh? That's women's talk for quitting and leaving, Fry. That what you're doing? Quitting and leaving?"

"No! I'm not doing that at all, I just, you just need to back off a little, that's all."

"Oh _I_ need to back off. _I_ need to give _you_ a little space!"

"Pretty much," Fry said. Leela closed her eye and put a hand to her face. This was _not_ good. For the second time that day she found herself standing between the pair of them.

"Look," she said, glaring at Fry and Bender in turn. "You two are going about this completely the wrong way. Bender, Philippa isn't going to disappear and stop being your friend just because she's a she. And Philippa, you need to remember that _Bender is your friend_. Your relationship is going to be very different from here on in, now shut up and let me watch the television."

Leela grabbed the remote and dropped on to the couch with a grunt, where she changed channels until some sort of news program appeared. Bender went and stood next to Fry, and they both watched her for a while.

"Wow," Bender said eventually. "She's in a real ballbreaker mood today."

"I wouldn't know about that," Fry said. She elbowed Bender and smiled. Bender laughed a little bit. "I know it'll sound like soppy girl stuff to you, Bender, but I do love being around you, and I do find your jokes funny. It's just hard."

"Yeah. Maybe." Bender looked at his fingertips. "Anyway, I got a note about a TV delivery coming tomorrow morning. You know anything about that?"

"Weelll, I may have slightly ordered a fifteen foot plasmatron."

"Oh. Oh." Bender looked around the apartment. "Right. Fifteen feet you say? Well. I..." He suddenly threw his arms around Fry, who _yeeked _in shock._ "_Fry, you're the best girlfriend a guy could ever have!"

Fry half-shrugged and tried to untangle herself from Bender's arms. "Thanks, I think."

"Don't mention it," Bender said. He pulled out a cigar and sat himself down on the couch next to Leela. "So what's so important about the TV then?"

Leela pointed as a 'breaking news' graphic appeared on the screen. "This. Now quiet."

Fry sat down next to Leela and stared at the screen as the music played out. Then half of the pair she'd come to associate with just about every major news and entertainment program appeared on screen, grimacing at the camera. She moved over a little to let Amy sit next to her, forcing Leela to shuffle over as well. Leela grumbled, but kept her eye fixed on the screen.

"Good afternoon Puny Humans," the great green alien intoned solemnly. "Pathetic specimens of humanity infesting Earth settlement New New York City were panicked into a stampede after lights appeared in the sky above their chaotic and ill-planned city. We now go live to Fifth Avenue, where puny female co-host Linda has the latest update. Linda?"

The view changed to fifth avenue, right outside the _Mandroid's Cellar_. Linda was standing in front of a camera, holding a comically oversized microphone and peering at something below the frame. "So I said of course I'd love to see their new swimming pool but- what? Oh!" She quickly adjusted her hair and looked into the camera. "Thank you Morbo. I'm standing here where the first eye-witnesses appear to have seen what happened." Linda paused for a moment as a still-frame from a handheld camera was flashed up, showing Fry, Leela and Amy from an angle that put the camera inside the _Mandroid's Cellar_. Amy and Leela glared at Fry. She grinned nervously and tried to sink into the seat.

"The women pictured were unavailable for comment, having left the scene shortly after the events, however several other witnesses claimed that bright orange lights appeared in the sky heading east, only to disappear moments later. City authorities have not yet released any comment, though an official at the Earth Orbital Space Command Centre has told Sqrt2 News that the apparent objects were not space-craft and not any known natural phenomenon. From Fifth Avenue, New New York City for Sqrt2 News. Morbo?"

"Thank you, Linda." Morbo appeared on the screen again, shuffling paper. He looked at the camera. "With news of the DOOP's successful negotiations with the Ruklisk still fresh in their feeble minds, some commentators have speculated that today's events may have been the end result of a power-play by the Ruklisk prior to their sudden acquiescence in the face of the uncompromising stance of superior human specimen Captain Zapp Brannigan of the Starship _Nimbus_. Other commentators believe this may be part of a larger attempt by that honourable race to terrify the pathetic species that infests this planet into paranoid catatonia in order to soften them up for a full-blown invasion. Morbo finds that this statement ignores the potential for humans to scare themselves witless with nothing more advanced than shadow puppets.

"The DOOP leadership have announced a press conference tomorrow morning where they are expected to reveal the terms of the new treaty with the Ruklisk. Morbo hopes abject surrender was amongst them, as it would prepare this world for my people's inevitable victory in the coming war of conquest. YOU WILL ALL PERISH! This is Morbo for Sqrt2 News."

Leela turned off the TV and stared at the blank screen for a moment. Then she stood up. "That wasn't as helpful as I'd hoped."

"This is network television Leela," Amy said,. "If you expected them to actually be informative you're dumber than I am."

Amy nodded in triumph, then suddenly realised what she said. She mouthed a silent 'oh' and sat back on the couch, trying to avoid everyone's gaze.

Fry looked up at Leela; hell, it was something she'd done ever since she'd arrived here, why break the habit now? "What are we going to do?"

"Nothing," Leela said. Her voice sounded a little distant. She looked down at Fry. "I'm going home. Are you going to be all right tonight?"

Fry nodded and tried to smile. It almost worked. She touched her hair as she thought about what to say next. It needed styling or something. At least it was clean. "I'll be fine I think. Maybe we could get together after work tomorrow for coffee."

"I'd like that," Leela said. She looked at Amy. "How about you?"

"I can't, I have a big sorority party to go to uptown tomorrow night. You can come if you want." Amy smiled hopefully, but Leela shook her head. "Fry?"

"I'm not sure I'm quite ready for that," Fry said sadly. She thought about how the old Fry would have reacted to such an invitation and groaned inwardly. So many odd memories that needed excising. Odd thought to have, too... "Thanks for taking me shopping today. I enjoyed it. A lot."

"Oh. Oh! Perhaps," Amy asked shyly, "you can come with me again some time?"

Fry glanced at Leela, who shrugged and looked away. "Sure, I'd like that."

"Great! We can hit all my favourite shops! I could take you for a manicure!" Amy jumped up from her seat and skipped – _skipped_ – toward the door. She paused by the pile of shopping. "Fry, you have to get me one of those eOdels! I will do anything, just get me one. Please?"

Bender sat up. "Anything?"

"Not now Bender." Fry batted Bender's arm away from her head and grinned at Amy. "Have mine, I can get another one."

"You mean it? Thanks Fry!" She reached into the pile and plucked the miniature music player from the depths. Amy hugged the box to her chest and spun around a couple of times. "You're the best!"

The door hissed and Amy was gone. Leela walked over to the shopping and retrieved her own meagre selection. "That was very sweet of you Philippa," she said as Fry joined her by the door. "Are you sure you know what you're going, saying you'll go shopping with her?"

"Not really, but if she's paying who am I to argue?"

Leela shouldered her bags and took Fry's hand. "It was nice. You're a good friend, Philippa." She gave her a quick hug and squeezed her hands. "I'd better get home, I have to feed Nibbler before he eats the neighbour's cat again."

Leela stepped back and looked Fry up and down. "You're making a great woman, you know that?" She followed Amy out of the apartment, leaving Fry alone with her thoughts.

And Bender's.

"You know what I think," the robot said after a moment. Fry waited the obligatory half-second that Bender allowed as a sop to anyone who might want to interrupt. "I think you should get yourself some fancy hosiery and-"

"Don't push your luck Bender."

"It was just an idea..." Fry heard Bender stand up and clump toward his room. "Oh, oh you could-"

"Does it involve you using me to make money in some sort of exploitative mantrap on the internet?" Fry turned around and glared at Bender. "Because if it does I'm probably not interested."

"Tomorrow?"

"Goodnight Bender." Fry turned to her room, then paused. She looked back at the forlorn robot, suddenly feeling guilty. "If it makes you feel better, someone needs to be home when the new TV arrives." When Bender didn't move, Fry edged a little closer. "I bought us sports cable?"

"Hot-damn!"

* * *

The next morning saw Fry stumbling into work almost an hour late. She practically crawled up the stairs to the lounge and collapsed on the couch with a groan. Fry closed her eyes as soon as she hit the cushions and didn't even notice when Leela entered the room.

"Wow, are you okay? You look like hell," Leela said, pulling Fry upright. Fry groaned again. "What's the matter?"

Fry slumped in the seat, shielding her eyes from the sunlight streaming through the window. "I didn't sleep very well last night. Every time I rolled over these damn _things_ would... Leela how do you copewith it?"

"I suppose you sort of get used to it," Leela said slowly. "To be honest I never thought about it before. Let me guess, you kept rolling on to your front."

Fry shut her eyes and slowly nodded her head. She flopped back on the couch and spread her arms out with a plaintive sigh. "I never thought I'd miss being able to do that."

"Want some coffee?"

Fry nodded. "Oh yes. Strong as you got. In fact just bring me the raw coffee and a spoon."

"You're in luck, I found some Turkish espresso in the back of a cupboard this morning. Besides," Leela added as she walked away. "It looks like we're not going to be doing much in the way of deliveries today. Business has been pretty slow recently."

The kitchen door closed behind Leela just moments before the hangar door opened, admitting Professor Farnsworth. He shuffled in and paused at the threshold.

"Good news ev-" Farnsworth grimaced and peered around the room. His gaze rested on Fry. "Oh."

"Sorry Professor, just me right now," Fry said. She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Leela will be back in a few minutes if that helps."

"It doesn't help at all!" Farnsworth slowly turned himself around and shuffled out of the room, mumbling to himself. Fry cast a tired gaze toward the door and then let her head loll back against the couch. She laid an arm over her eyes to block out the light.

Her relief was short lived.

"Hey, wake up lazybones, your coffee's getting cold." Leela poked Fry until she sat upright again.

"Thanks." Fry managed to pull herself upright. She took the cup Leela proffered and immersed her head in the thick steam rising from the coffee's surface. "Oh I needed that," she said after a moment, keeping her eyes closed. She took a deep breath of the steam. Her eyes snapped open. "Wow this stuff _is_ strong."

"Yes. Be careful with it, you don't want to overdose on caffeine before this afternoon, remember?"

"I think I might have already." Fry looked into the coffee. After a moment of thought she put it down on the table and stood up. "The Professor was in a moment ago. I think he has some sort of announcement to make."

"Perhaps we've got a job," Leela said with a smile. She rubbed her hands together with glee. "An actual job. It's been so long since I flew that I've almost forgotten how. Come on, he's probably in his lab."

Fry grimaced. She wasn't so sure about going up to the lab again. Last time she'd not been able to get up to the door without her heart fluttering. She hung back a moment. "I think we'd better check the conference room first," she said quietly. Leela gave her a gentle look and then nodded.

"Okay, you check the conference room, I'll take the lab. One of us should find him."

"Oh. Yes, that would work. I-" Fry was interrupted by a PA speaker crackling to life. Feedback whistled around the building. "When did that get installed?"

"Beats me," Leela said. They looked up at the ceiling as the PA crackled again. Professor Farnsworth's echoed after it.

"Attention employees, this is an announcement, h'yes." There was a pause and more feedback. Farnsworth's voice was stilted and monotonous, as if he was reading from a script. "Good news. Everyone. Due to. The lack. Of. Gainf-"

"Oh gimme that you silly old mon, mon," Hermes's voice cut in. He coughed into the speaker a few times. "Good morning employees, due to the continuin dearth of available work we are no longer goin to pay you to be here sitting on your idle buttocks, until and unless you can supply the appropriate Bureaucrat Non-functional Employment License. All pay is therefore suspended until an order comes in. Of course we will expect you to remain on duty for as long as required to maintain a speedy response time in such an eventuality. Please have a productive and pleasant day."

"I could have said it better," Farnsworth said, before the speaker cut off. There was a moment of silence as the two women contemplated what they'd heard.

"I guess we're getting that coffee early then," Leela said, heading for the door. "There's that nice place across the road, or we could try somewhere else."

"I think some other place would be best. That one across the road has... memories." Fry glanced at the coffee shop as they exited the building. Last time he'd been there had been the first time she'd been able to tell Leela how she really felt. It was strange. She knew in her head that she had loved Leela, but now she couldn't muster it. The feelings were there but, filtered through her new mind, were radically different, as if what had been a sort of lustful pursuit had turned into something completely different.

Fry realised she'd stopped walking and jogged to catch up with Leela, who had paused at the street corner. She smiled at Fry again. "Come on lazy bones, I thought all that Turkish grunge would have had you bouncing off the walls by now."

Fry managed to muster a half-hearted laugh. Leela peered at her and tutted. "You really didn't sleep at _all_ last night, did you."

"Not a wink. I think it's the familiarity of my room back home," Fry said as they crossed the road. There was surprisingly little traffic around. "It's like it;'s my room, but it's not my room, if you see what I mean. It's a man's room, I wasn't really comfortable in it any more, and that's on top of... well." She glanced down and the grinned nervously. "Don't make any jokes."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Leela said. They came to a small coffee bar in a side-street called 'Maxine's', with a pair of steel tables on the pavement outside, and several overstuffed couches behind the windows. A few bookish patrons slumbering in the deep folds of upholstery barely acknowledged Fry and Leela as they entered the bar, though a slim attendant waved to them from behind the counter.

"What can I get you lovely ladies," he said as they approached. He paused at the sight of Leela's eye and raised an eyebrow. "Hey aren't you the one that-"

Leela glared at the young man. "If this is about Brannigan..."

"Oh. Oh no, no, whatever that might be, I have no idea." The attendant fiddled with his cups nervously. "No, you were the woman that opera a few weeks back was about, weren't you?"

"Why yes, I was as a matter of fact," Leela said, softening remarkably fast. She smiled at the young man. He straightened up and smiled back.

"You're a lucky woman, having someone write an entire opera for you. And the tragedy of it all too... some of my patrons were talking about it for weeks afterwards. Is it true he's disappeared?"

Fry and Leela glanced at each other. "Something like that," Leela said after a moment. She looked at Fry again and her eye seemed to mirror Fry's own thoughts. The attendant cleared his throat and looked expectantly at the pair.

"So what'll it be?"

"Two regular coffees, ooh, and a vanilla danish," Leela added. Fry felt compelled to look under the counter at the delights. She shouldn't... should she? "Oh go on, treat yourself," Leela said playfully.

"Well, if you say so, better make it two," Fry said, giving Leela a wan smile. Leela paid the attendant, accompanying it with another smile and they moved off to a far corner of the bar.

"Who knew a place like this could still exist," Leela said as they sat down. Fry felt herself sinking into the deep cushions and tried to shuffle around so that she didn't completely disappear. Leela gave a quiet laugh at her apparent discomfort. "The pain of having such a cute little butt," she said with an evil smile.

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response," Fry replied. She wiggled about again, found herself a comfortable spot and sat back just as the attendant brought out their coffee and danish.

"Back in a second," he said, departing with the tray, only to return a moment later with a large steaming pot of coffee. "It's not often we get anyone famous in here, no matter how fleeting it might have been, so... refills on the house. My treat."

"Well thank you very much, uh..." Leela peered at the attendant's name-badge. "Samuel Happy To Help."

"Just Sam will do," the man said with a grin. He neatened up their table a little and then retreated behind the counter again, where he picked up a book and began to read.

Fry picked up her coffee and sniffed at it. "Oh, that's not bad." She took a small sip and then peered at the Danish, hunger flashing through her belly, chased by a strange sort of shame. Leela was already attacking hers with gusto. "You know, right after I found out what had happened I promised myself I wouldn't act like a stereotype."

"Eating a few pastries isn't a stereotype, Philippa," Leela said. She brushed a crumb from her lip. "Some women are ice-cream munching sugar addicts, just like some men are beer-swilling idiots. It's just the way things are."

"I guess." Fry ignored the possibly unconscious jibe. She fingered the pastry and then tasted it. "Doesn't taste so bad," she said, before taking another bite.

"You're just paranoid because you're still remembering how you used to look at women," Leela said, before polishing off her pastry. She washed it down with some coffee and then daintily dabbed her lips with a napkin. "You've got to relax a little, be yourself."

"Myself. I'm not too clear on what that is now," Fry responded sadly. She looked up at Leela; that look was in her eye again and Fry wondered if she had it too. She _felt_ it. A sort of distant loss that grew more remote every time she thought about it. Perhaps Leela was going the same way? Perhaps...

"You said it yourself, you are what you are. Just relax and let your heart do the thinking for a bit. Don't let those memories dictate to you. They're not the sum of your existence. Well they are the sum of your existence, but they're not everything you _can_ be."

Fry nodded and looked down. Had she really finished off that entire pastry without noticing? Incredible. She looked over at Samuel. "Hey, excuse me, have you got any cookies in this place?"

Samuel smiled and nodded. "I have a large selection, miss. I'll bring you out a few samples."

"Samples," Leela said, leaning close to Fry. "Philippa, you sly minx, getting us free biscuits!"

"Hey, if he gives them to us free it'll be because of you, not me. You're the famous one."

"You wrote the opera," Leela said. Fry cast her eyes down at the table and sighed, to which Leela replied by putting her hand on Fry's. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right. I'd hoped the ending would..." Fry looked up at Leela again, right into her eye this time. "I've told you a thousand times how I felt. Now I'm finally in a position where we can really relate to you and I don't feel it any more. At least, not in the same way."

Leela's smile faltered for a moment and she blinked hard a few times. Then the smile returned, a little broader. "We'll always have danish," she said brightly.

Fry returned the smile. "There's more than that, Leela. For the first time in my life I can talk to you as an equal. I'm happy. I thought I'd lost my shot at it, but I got another in exchange, and if I have to spend a year like this then it'll be the best year of my life."

Fry slipped her hand out from under Leela's and then placed it on top. Leela sniffled. "That's the sweetest, saddest, most beautiful thing I've ever heard."

"Me too," Samuel said, sliding a plate of cookies on to their table. He stood back a little. Both women stared at him. "What?"

"Can't you see we're having a moment here?" Leela said. She gave Samuel a stern look but he just stared right back at her, and then smiled again.

"On the house," he said. He winked at Fry and then turned to walk away.

"What are you doing," Fry said, nudging Leela's arm. Hard. Leela grimaced and rubbed her biceps.

"Should it matter?"

"It matters enough if we want to keep coming to this place," Fry whispered, though loud enough to get her emotions across. "Besides, he's..."

Leela raised her eyebrow, and then her eye widened; a singular sight. She put her hand to her mouth and gasped. "Philippa, what are you saying?"

"He's... cute," Fry eventually managed. She blushed. Leela put her other hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. "Oh come on, can't a girl make an observation?"

"A girl can, for sure," Leela said in between quiet chuckles. She managed to pause long enough to pour herself a fresh cup of coffee, over which she peered at Fry, who turned red again. "It's healthy and completely normal to say it. He _is_ cute," Leela observed, glancing at the counter. "I wouldn't argue with that for a moment. It's just... you."

"I'm embarrassed enough without you reminding me," Fry said, stirring her coffee absently as she looked toward Samuel again. She suddenly realised what she was doing and decided to search through the cookies. Eventually, after retrieving something tasty, she risked another look at Leela. She was looking at the counter as well, a slightly dreamy look on her face, and Fry felt an odd stab of jealousy. Not for Leela though, which was odd. She looked at Samuel again. "Damn. My first real crush and I'm already competing? This is too far out."

Leela looked at her. Then they both burst out laughing.

* * *

Time passed, punctuated by a few strange happenings that resulted from the changes wrought by the accident. A tweak in the earth's magnetic field sent a dozen or so birds flying into a volcano. A few stray particles of air sent swirling from their correct course caused a hurricane to form on the Great Lakes three months later, in Andalusia the very surprised-looking face of Cliff Richards appeared on a thousand tortillas, and the orbit of Mars was changed such that in several centuries it would be almost half a degree warmer on average. A single misplaced worker caused an ant-colony on the coast of Peru to gain sentience and begin formulating the conquest of the colony next door, only to be wiped out a week later by a freak wave sixteen meters high and three wide, caused by a microscopic eddy current off the coast of Japan that had suddenly turned in the wrong direction. After that things generally died down; so much change was simply lost in the noise and so much more would never have any impact in less than a million years.

Planet Express started to pick up jobs again soon after, mostly long-distance courier work, which pleased Leela no end as it allowed her to indulge in a little racing in the deeps, and it pleased Fry because it got her out of the world now and then. In between drops they spent a lot of their time at Maxine's, passing the afternoons in idle chatter with each other and the regular patrons, who seemed enamoured with them both to varying degrees. Fry spent a few days flirting with Samuel until it became clear that he only had eyes for Leela, and it seemed that Leela, free of any latent concern for Fry's potential feelings toward her, was starting to fall for his blandishments too.

Fry spent that week in a jealous huff but eventually realised that she would have had a hard time of it if things had gone the other way; some aspects of her new sexuality remained uncomfortable to think about. Instead she busied herself with the day-to-day of her job and minimal social life, and she even consented to a few shopping trips with Amy for form's sake, incidentally amassing a rather large collection of fancy clothes that Fry figured she'd probably never wear. But what the hell, Amy was paying for them.

The one problem she faced was Bender. Whilst everyone else had accepted the change, or at least grown used to it enough to not notice any more, Bender seemed to hold a very specific sort of grudge against it. Fry tried to find ways to restore their friendship without breaking Leela's admonition to not 'hurry him up' but it seemed, as the weeks turned into months, that there was a barrier between them that had never existed before, and eventually she gave up. For his part, Bender at least maintained a sort of formal acknowledgement of her existence but nothing more. No more trips to the pits and bars, no more crazy schemes and late-night parties.

Fry knew she should feel bad about it but she just couldn't muster the feelings. She was, as she explained to Leela and Amy on the last day of their latest jaunt, having too much fun.

* * *

"Well perhaps you could try getting your own place," Leela said after a moment's thought. The ship was drifting along in a high earth orbit while they waited for a landing slot, and the three of them were sat in the galley with their now obligatory cups of coffee, passing the time. "It's not like you two really even see each other outside of work any more."

"I really don't know about that though," Fry said. She screwed up her face as she thought. Decisions were so hard. "I mean, he's my friend, I owe it to him to at least try."

"It's obvious he doesn't want you as a friend any more," Leela replied. She touched Fry's arm and gave her a comforting smile. "Sometimes you just have to acknowledge these things and, as the men say, 'move on'."

Fry frowned into her coffee. "It was never like that. I'm sure it wasn't."

"You moved on pretty fast after we split up," Amy said with what might have been a frown or just hard concentration. It was hard to tell sometimes. "And so did I, come to think of it."

"Face it Phi, you two aren't working." The communications alarm bleeped. Leela made a face and stood up. "That'll be our landing slot. At least think about it, okay?"

"Okay," Fry said, staring at her hands on the table. She waited for Leela to leave before standing up herself. "I guess we'd better go with her."

"Wait." Amy put her hand on Fry's and motioned her to sit down again. "Look, Fry, I know you're upset about Bender but Leela's right, you're just not working together any more."

"I can't just move out though. He's my friend! It wouldn't be fair to him."

"What about you, Phi? You should be thinking about yourself now and then. I do," Amy said with a pout. "A lot."

"Yes, but you're-"

"Just like you, remember? Not that I'd be the first to listen to Leela when she's in that sort mood but she's right, Phi, we're very similar. You just have a few more issues than me is all."

"But it's such a nice apartment..." She looked up. Amy gave her a sympathetic smile. "I... it would... look, he's my friend. I can't just decide to up and leave after nearly six years of living with him. I know that our interests aren't so much the same any more-"

"Guh! Phi, they couldn't _be _more different! He's a guy, he does guy things that most women wouldn't be seen dead doing, and now neither would you."

"That's not fair Amy. There are lots of women who like the things I used to... like... ah." Fry twiddled her fingers and glanced around the galley as if it would somehow pass on the conversation to Bender. "I'll talk to him tomorrow," she said sadly.

Fry pushed back from the table and left the galley. She paused at the ladder and looked back at Amy. "He was the first person I met here who was nice to me. I think he even _liked_ me. How would you feel if you had to leave someone like that?"

"Oh Phi..." Amy stepped over to Fry and put an arm around her shoulders. "_Everyone _likes me."

* * *

The entered the bridge to find Leela swearing at a blank viewscreen. She thumped the control column and almost growled at Fry when she came near. "What do you want?"

Fry put her hands up and backed away. "Uh... just... visiting?" She looked out of the windows at earth; their orbit seemed to have changed but it wasn't any lower. "I take it we're not going home yet."

"Hell no, that fat, arrogant son of a..." Leela closed her eye and sighed. "We're being held in place until the _Nimbus_ and her escort have made some sort of victory pass over New New York and Washington. They said it'll only take a few minutes, though I expect Zapp will managed to screw it up anyway, but the time it takes to get everyone organised afterwards means we're stuck up here for another half hour."

"That big ship flying over New New York? I wish I could see that..." Fry said, a wistful expression fleeting across her face. She walked over to the windows and peered out into space, where she could see they were just passing over the Arabian Steppe, glowing pale grey-green in early morning light. She turned and looked at Leela. "I'm going to have a talk with Bender soon, but I need to find a place to stay before I do."

Leela smiled a broad smile. "There might be an apartment in my building you could-"

"Oh, no. No offence, Leela, but I need something a little more... airy." Fry sighed and rubbed her eyes, wondering where all her emotion had gone. It felt wrong talking about this so calmly. "And I need a little time first."

"Weell... okay, it's not something to rush in to," Leela replied. She glanced at the chronometer and then at the view screen again. "I could-"

Leela's sentence was interrupted by the viewscreen as it suddenly burst into life. The oversized visage of Zapp Brannigan appeared out of the fizzling static and contrived by some strange miracle to appear even more smug and unbearable than usual.

"Zapp?"

"Leela," Zapp noddeed. He backed away from the camera and stuck a pose by his command chair. "Right now I am passing over the White House at this ship's maximum allowed speed in an atmosphere. It is a very tense and difficult manoeuvre that requires a great deal of concentration by all involved in its operation. You may then wonder why I'm calling you at this particular moment."

Leela glared at the screen. "Maybe your crew have managed to contrive a situation where you can't screw up, and so you're bored?"

"Ahhh, Leela, the games we play..." Zapp glanced around his command deck with a shifty eye before going on. "I am due to be honoured at a diplomatic function that will be the culmination of my latest grand strategy to protect the earth, yadda yadda and so on, and I will need a certain sexy female to accompany me."

"Forget it Zapp, we've been there already."

"You've been to Eridani?" Zapp looked puzzled until Kif whispered something in his ear. "Ahh, the wit of the woman. So we are at a stalemate, you and I. No matter, I shall have Kif here assign me some other beautiful female for the evening."

On the edge of the screen Kif's shoulder's slumped and he sighed. Leela rolled her eye. "So, I guess this is goodbye then. Not a moment too soon either."

Zapp straightened up and looked suitably anguished. "Leela, wait." He walked toward the monitor again. "I have one more suggestion before you leave."

Leela sighed and folded her arms. "Go on. And this better be good."

"I have discretion to invite a certain number of guests to the par-" he paused and smiled. "Conference, I should say. I want to invite you and some of your more photogenic friends. It would be beneficial for all involved."

Leela frowned and was about to tell Zapp to take a hike when Amy touched her shoulder. "Leela, can we go?_ Please_? I've not been to a decent party for nearly a _month_."

"Oh I don't know..." she turned from the screen and killed the audio. "Amy, this is Zapp we're talking about. He'll do something stupid and then try to get me into bed."

"Again," Amy added, leaping back in case Leela lashed out at her. Leela growled at Amy, who stuck out her tongue. "Come on Leela, it'll be fun!"

"Yeah," Fry added, stepping forward to support Amy. "At the very least it would give us something to do for a few days, and I bet the Professor would love rubbing shoulders with all those rich and powerful people. Besides, what's the worst that could happen?"

"Oh I know exactly what." Leela looked a the screen; Zapp was conversing with one of his crew about something. _Probably ordering himself a new velour shower cap_, Leela thought bitterly. "Well... against my better judgement, perhaps."

Amy cheered. Leela turned back to the viewscreen and activated the sound again. "Okay Zapp, we're coming, but I reserve the right to bring a date who isn't you."

Zapp's face fell, but he rallied magnificently. "I accept the challenge of besting your... 'date'. I shall see you in one week on Eridani Prime, and then the contest shall begin anew."

The screen blanked out before Leela could get a retort in. She scowled at the screen, then turned on Amy. "You got me into this. If anything goes wrong..."

"Nothing will go wrong, Leela," Amy said with an evil smile. "We have Philippa to run interference for you now."

"What?" Fry put her hands up protectively and backed away. "Oh no, no way, I am not going anywhere near him, not in a million years."

Leela looked over at Fry with a thoughtful look. "He doesn't know what happened to you..."

"You could play a cousin or a long-lost sister," Amy said with a cheerful, almost vacant grin on her face. She pinched Fry's cheek. "Come on, it'll be fun. You can just talk man-talk or something."

Fry batted Amy's hand away, frowned and shook her head. "No way."

"We'll talk about this later," Leela said, fiddling with the ship's controls. She powered up the engines and started altering their orbit. "At least all that talking passed the time. I don't think I could have stood being up here another minute."

Fry sat down at the communications console and stared out of the window, her mind racing. Buying dresses had been one thing, but she'd never actually expected to wear them. The planet tilted as Leela manoeuvred the ship for re-entry, giving Fry a brief glimpse of passing continents and distance orbiting craft jostling for space in the relatively crowded shipping lanes above Earth. Suddenly the _Nimbus_ appeared in the distance, rising up from the atmosphere over the Atlantic like a giant grinning shark. She was easy enough to stop; the bevy of support craft following in her wake left a glittering trail through the tenuous air, pointing almost directly toward them. "Leela?"

"Yuh-huh? I'm a bit busy right now Phi," Leela said, her eye concentrated on a guidance screen.

"I think we need to go a different direction," she said, warily eyeing the DOOP ship, which was coming awfully close now. The fear in her voice must have got to Amy, who followed Fry's gaze and gasped.

"Bun tyen-shung duh ee-dway-ro!" Leela turned at glared at Amy, who put her hands over her mouth and tried to smile apologetically at the same time. "Sorry..."

"Damn that idiot," Leela said as she realised what was happening. She overrode the landing computer and turned the ship ssharply to port. The computers blared course warnings at her as they moved to avoid the _Nimbus,_ and then started to warble a constant re-entry warning. "This is going to be very interesting..."

Amy grabbed hold of her seat. "Define interesting."

The Planet Express ship bucked and started to tumble as the _Nimbus_ roared past, setting off a flurry of fresh alarms as the sudden shift in attitude was miss-matched by the gravity generator. Amy swore again as she was tossed across the cabin. Fry managed to hold on to her seat, but felt bile rising in her throat as the gravity within the ship shifted and twisted, sending her into momentary free-fall.

The moment passed. Leela managed to right the ship, though they were several miles off their course already. She grumbled and set about returning them to the correct heading. Fry pulled herself from her seat and went over to Amy, who lay groaning on the deck near the rear bulkhead. "Amy? Are you all right?"

"Oh... never better," she replied faintly, before pushing herself up. Amy hissed in pain when she moved. "Ai yah, I think I broke something!"

"Might be a fingernail," Fry said, putting an arm under Amy's back. She lifted the young woman to a sitting position. "Come on, you probably just pulled a muscle or something. It'll help if you walk it off."

Amy grimaced as she was pulled upright. She staggered over to the communications console chair with Fry's help and sat heavily down.

"I won't ask what you called Zapp, much as I'd like to join in," Leela said, making a few adjustments to their course. Earth filled the windows now as they descended across the Atlantic. She turned from the console and looked at Amy. "How-"

The comms console beeped. Amy peered at it. "Huh. Nimbus calling."

"Unless it's an abject apology I don't want to know." Leela turned back to her console, her eye concentrated on the readouts and she tried to right their course again. Amy shrugged and activated the comms.

"Amy? Are you there?"

"Kif!" Amy sat up in her seat, then hissed again and grabbed her side. She muttered something under her breath and then spoke up. "Kif, what the hell was that?"

"Oh Amy, my love, I'm so sorry. Did you get hurt? I'll-"

Amy grimaced at Kif's emotional display. "Kif, please, I'm fine." She rolled her eyes at Fry before going on. "What was going on over there?"

"Amy, it was horrible. Zapp kept demanding we make a pass at Leela. I think he's gone completely mad." There was a pause. "Again."

"And you want me to go distract that guy?" Fry shook her head. "No way. I'm not-"

"Quiet!" Amy turned back to the console. "Kiffy, why aren't you on visual, I haven't seen you for months!"

"I'm sorry Amy, most of our visual comms are still out of action after that plasma bolt hit us and we've not laid into drydock to get them repaired yet. The Captain had us spend all our time jerry-rigging a working visual on the bridge so he could pose for diplomats."

Leela glanced over her shoulder. "Plasma bolt?" She looked at Amy and Fry. "Like the ones we saw over fifth avenue that time?"

"I, uh, if, if you say so," Kif replied cautiously. "It hit the main engines and sent a shockwave through the ship's gravity system, so that Zapp ended up stabbing the lead Ruklisk negotiator. Don't believe him when he says it was bravery and skill that won the negotiations. It was a complete accident, but he's been unbearable ever since."

"Aww, poor kiffy..." Leela coughed loudly. Amy turned and glared at her. "Come on, you've been in love before haven't you?"

Leela looked over her shoulder at Amy. "Not like that," she retorted.


	4. Self Discovery is a Terrible Thing

**Chapter Four – That Sinking Feeling**

The ship made landfall without further incident, not counting Fry's unfortunate reaction to a stale Twinky she found in the galley, and fairly soon the whole Planet Express staff were gathered in the conference room.

The room was tense; normally a post-mission debrief would only involve Leela and Hermes, sorting out the accounts and getting stories straight for when the clients inevitably called to complain about broken packages and the like, whilst everyone went home early to get some well-deserved rest. The resentment at being kept behind was almost palpable.

On top of that, Fry found herself sat directly opposite Bender with the entire expanse of the table between them. Bender didn't look at her as she sat down, preferring to stare at the ceiling with his eyeshield half lowered as he smoked one of the cigars Fry could no longer stand to be around.

The Professor shuffled in and sat down in his chair at the head of the table. He gave everyone a meaningful look. "You may be wondering why I called you all here today," he said after a moment. "I realise that you all want to go home and enjoy yourselves in the fleshpots and such, but Leela has brought something important to my attention. The peace treaty gathering on Eridani Prime," he said, adjusting his glasses. "The heads of almost every major world in the Democratic Order of Planets will be there and I want a piece of that action!"

"Why not just spam them like everyone else does," Bender asked. "I could set it up for you. I'd only ask for a sixty percent cut."

"That's preposterous in the extreme because I have no idea what you're talking about," Farnsworth said. He wiped his brow. "And I certainly haven't tried it already either."

"Professor..." Leela leaned forward a little. "I don't like it. Zapp-"

"Oh that wonderful captain Brannigan, h'yes, he'll be there won't he? We need an in, Leela. Something that will get us a more steady income."

"Aye, nothing is more steady and dependable than a government contract," Hermes added, patting his briefcase.

Leela gave Hermes a puzzled look. "But aren't we already getting a lot of work? I don't remember flying this much since, well, ever."

"My projections are never wrong," Hermes said. He pressed a few buttons on the console in front of him, activating the main display screen, where a graph appeared. "Based on our current income and expenditure we seem to be doing fine," he said. A few more buttons were pressed and the graph expanded to include a sudden precipitous fall. "However, that doesn't factor in the reductions that will be comin' in the economy by the end of the year thanks to Captain Brannigan's shenanigans."

"Reductions?"

"Yep. The Democratic Order of Planets is 'administratively reorganisin' their entire fleet now that the cold war is over, and that means a lot of service contracts lapsin', a lot of ex sailors lookin' for work and a lot of people who don't need parts deliverin' any more. Taking that into account we'll be bankrupt in eight to ten months at the very latest. That means you lot will be out of work." He turned to face the team, his face deadly serious. "Permanently."

Fry looked over at Bender, now fully attentive. The robot turned to look back at her and spoke. "How about downsizing? Getting rid of unnecessary burdens and such."

"Oh we thought about that," Farnsworth said. "The mayor's office and the I.N.S. both said that Zoidberg was our responsibility whether we wanted him or not."

"That means he's an employee, and as long as he's an employee we have to pay him a wage." Hermes glanced down at his papers. "Even if it is just fifty cents a week..."

Zoidberg's eyes widened. "I'm getting a raise? Hooray!"

"Don't be stupid you spineless caneswaggler!" Hermes adjusted his glasses and peered at the papers again. "Everyone else on the team has to be here otherwise we don't function."

"You mean," Amy said after a moment's thought, "you're saying that after all these years of holding 'expendable' above our heads, we're all actually necessary employees?"

Hermes glared at Amy, not for the first time, but with extra passion now. "Yes," he admitted, making a pained face. He shuffled the papers. "And unless we have some sort of government contract you'll all be unemployed necessary employees too."

Farnsworth cleared his throat as Hermes sat down. "That's where you come in, Leela. And the rest of you. We need to get one of those heads of state to agree to pay us lots of money. I don't know how you'll do it. You can sleep with them for all I care, but you are all going to that function, and that's final."

There was a general grumbling as everyone stood to leave – except Amy and Zoidberg, who both seemed to be quite happy in their own ways. Leela glared at the young intern's back as she left but managed to hold back her ire though, if Amy had seen her eye, she might have had a fairly good idea of what Leela wanted to say.

Fry stayed in her seat, watching Bender. The robot was still puffing away on his cheroot, the apparent picture of perfect contentment. He took out the cigar and examined it.

"So, you coming home tonight?" He refused to look at Fry when he spoke. In the background Leela paused and turned to listen.

"I... I'm not sure that's any of your business, Bender," Fry said. She stayed in her seat. Bender, for his part, also refused to move. "But if you must know I was thinking about crashing with Amy."

"Okay then." Bender stubbed out the cigar on his own hand and dropped it into his compartment. "You've been doing that sort of thing a lot recently, Fry. Always hanging out with 'the girls' or crashing somewhere, or just not turning up. I'm starting to wonder if you even live with me any more." He paused and tapped a finger against his chinplate. It made an annoying metallic _clink_ with every beat. "On the other hand you're still paying half the rent so what do I care?"

Bender let out a short laugh and walked from the room whistling to himself. Fry watched him go; she felt like running after him, pulling him back, _begging_ to have his friendship back but it wouldn't have worked. She sighed and looked down at the table.

Leela put her hand on Fry's shoulder. "It's hard, I know, but you'll get over it." Fry nodded sadly but kept her head low. It felt right. She didn't deserve to see anything. Leela rubbed her shoulder and sat down in the next seat. "I found some apartments we can look at for you next week if you're-"

"No. I'm sorry Leela, it's too soon to think about that right now. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to talk to you about it, right now I'm just not... not in the mood."

"Oh, I understand. I'm sorry Phi."

Fry finally looked up to see the rather unedifying sight of Professor Farnsworth shuffling toward them. "Hi Professor."

"Miss Fry. Leela." Farnsworth stopped by the table and smiled at them. "Ahh, don't you worry your pretty heads about that contract balderdash, it's really so simple even Zoidberg could do it. I just like to have a certain amount of, eyuh, redundancy in the system, yes. That's right."

"So in that case..." Leela put her hands on her hips. "You don't need me to go."

"Not as such, but it would help. Besides, the possibility of your attachment to that nice coffee-shop owner down the block would be wonderful leverage to use against your, uh, potential suitors?"

"What? How do you know about Samuel?"

"Ohh, that doesn't matter," Farnsworth said, waving Leela away with one hand. A tiny remote television slipped out of his cuff and wrapped itself around his palm, where it began showing a pale green image of Maxine's interior on a slim screen. "Ahh, I wondered where that went..."

Farnsworth slipped the device off his hand. Ignoring Leela's spluttered protest he turned to Fry and put a hand on her shoulder. "Miss Fry, You may be glad to hear that I'm very close to a solution to your, ah, problem. I have to run a few experiments over the next day or so but I believe I may well have enough information to reverse the process that made you what you are."

"That was a lot faster than I thought it would be," Fry said, giving the table a thoughtful stare. So soon... just when she was getting used to the way things were. "How soon can you do it?"

"Oh, two weeks, perhaps three at the most. It's not a particularly delicate operation, apart from the timing of the events. I've performed one or two small-scale transitions already with several elemental atoms. They're up in the lab if you want to have a look."

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," Fry said. Leela put a hand on Fry's other shoulder.

"Come on Phi, you'll have to get over this fear of the lab some time or you'll never be able to get through this."

"Yes. Besides, my lab isn't the least bit scary," Farnsworth added, looking at the ceiling. "Well, uh, except for that singularity I accidentally created in the corner... but at least it makes the garbage easy to dispose of, h'yes." Farnsworth turned and peered at Fry as if he'd never seen her before.

Fry shifted under the glassy gaze of those thick-lensed eyes, which might have been trying to tell her something, or might just be completely blank from a stroke. She looked up at Leela. "I really don't know..."

"Come on Fry, what's the worst that can happen?"

Farnsworth slapped his face. "Oh lord, you just had to say it didn't you..." he turned and started the long trek to his lab, muttering about paradoxes and narratavium.

"What? Professor..." Leela sighed. She took Fry's shoulder again. "Come on, we'd better follow him before he forgets what he was going to do again."

Fry pushed herself from the chair and shook her arms trying to relieve the tension she could feel building up in her back. She smoothed down her shirt, tapped a toe against the ground and looked at Leela. "Okay, lets get this over with."

They followed Farnsworth up the stairs to his lab. Near the top of the staircase Fry suddenly hesitated and bit her lip.

"Philippa, what's-"

"That glow up there," Fry said, pointing. "I saw that last time. When _it_ happened."

Leela looked up to the lab door. An orange light cast out of the door and on to the wall, picking out details with odd shadows. "That's probably just some weird lights or something. Come on, stop being a baby about this Phi."

"No, Leela, I really don't have a good feeling about this. It's like there's some sort of, of feeling in my stomach..." she looked past Leela's head at the light. "That light scares the crap out of me and I don't know why."

"Well-" Leela's sentence was cut off by a huge, sucking, roaring sound from the lab. She threw herself across Fry with a wordless yell, knocking her backwards so that they both fell back down the stairs to the landing just as a huge girder slammed through the wall. Fry hit the floor hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. She choked, took a deep breath and then let out a ragged scream.

When that didn't change anything Fry opened her eyes and tried to sit up. Leela's motionless body lay across her, surprisingly heavy given her size. Fry keened and tried to push Leela off but only managed to squirm a little way along the floor.

Leela grunted and suddenly woke with a yell. She glanced around, then down at Fry, and then up the stairs. "Oh hell." She clambered to her knees and pulled Fry up to a sitting position. Fry patted over herself to check everything was still working. She followed Leela's gaze up the stairs. A small patch of of the girder sputtered with pale blue flames as exotic chemicals from the lab burned away at the galvanising paint. Leela sat down next to Fry and whistled. "If you ever get one of those feelings again you make sure you tell me straight away, Phi. That was _close_."

Too close, Fry thought. She suddenly realised that the voice of the thought was female. What an odd thing to think about. "Oh, the Professor!" Fry shot to her feet and ran up the ruined stairs, clambering over the girder before she even thought about it. Leela was a step behind her when Fry reached the door to the lab.

The place was not wrecked, exactly. A blast mark marred the floor near the centre of the lab, a ragged hole had been punched in the roof and there were several girders embedded in the floor and wall but the room was largely intact, though the Smelloscope was smashed. Farnsworth stood near the far wall staring up at the sky, where a bright orange ball of flame was receding toward the horizon, already well on its way out into space. A chunk of masonry fell from the edge of the gap and crashed to the floor.

Leela gasped when she saw the mess, and then yelped when she saw what had caused it. "Fry!"

Fry glanced at Leela, wondering why she used that name now of all times. She quickly walked across the lab to the Professor, carefully skirting the blast mark and the more obviously dangerous equipment. "Professor?"

"Wah? Oh..." Farnsworth looked away from the plasma ball, now a barely noticeable dot in the sky. He adjusted his glasses. "Oh, it's you."

"What on earth was that... that thing?" Fry pointed at the sky. She looked back over the lab. "What did you do?"

Farnsworth turned and looked around his lab, seeming not to notice the destruction. "Well. That was an apparent side-effect of the universal matrix transition," he said.

"The... wha?"

"Universal... that doesn't matter! The point is, it's caused by the same thing that caused you to turn into a highly attractive woman. I hadn't quite thought about the full effects of what I was doing, but it seems that when the transition occurred a number of atomic nuclei were thrown on to new and slightly erratic courses." Farnsworth adjusted his glasses again. He peered up at the hole and tutted sadly. "It'll take a long time to get that fixed..."

Leela leaned on a bench, glancing up at the sky now and then. "That looked like the ones we saw over Fifth Avenue," she said, giving Fry a meaningful look.

Farnsworth suddenly turned to face Leela. "What? When? When did you see that?"

"Oh..." Leela thought for a moment. She pushed off from the bench and started to pace toward the hole. "A few days after Fry got out of the hospital. We were shopping with Amy."

"How many did you see?"

"Two," Fry said. She shoved her hands in her pockets. Farnsworth rubbed his chin, a frown creasing his already-creased brow. "Is it important?"

"Not as much as you'd think, but it does raise interesting questions. I had hoped the effect wasn't so widespread."

Fry looked at her shoes and sighed. She swung her leg back and forth. "Wait a minute. Didn't Kif say something about a plasma ball hitting the _Nimbus_?"

"Why yes, he did," Leela said. She folded her arms and looked up at the sky. "From what he said, that idiot captain would probably have screwed up those negotiations if he hadn't been knocked off balance by the blast."

"You're saying that this thing changed history or something?"

Farnsworth nodded slowly. "Yes... in a manner of speaking it did just that for millions of atoms, but most of those are so isolated that it wouldn't make a difference on a universal scale. However..." Farnsworth wandered over to a table where a few magnetic containment jars rested on a thick metal plate. He stared at the for a long time. "In the right circumstances, a sudden non-predictable change of direction by a single atom could caused a positive feedback wave that would result in a macroscopic events. Most of the changes would still not have any effect beyond being very pretty," he added, looking up at the gap again. The plasma ball was long gone now. "But if they were to happen at the right spot, as it appears to have with the _Nimbus_, the effects would be very profound. Our immediate history has been irreparably altered by this accident. Who knows what might have happened otherwise?"

"Well, that's all very interesting, Professor, but it doesn't seem to make much different to Philippa's condition." Leela glanced at Fry again, trying to re-assure her. "Sorry for talking for you like this Phi."

"Oh it's not a problem. I..." Fry shook her head and smiled. Farnsworth, for his part, just looked at them vacantly. Fry looked around the lab, marvelling at how little equipment was actually damaged. "I guess we saw the changed atoms right there. Is there a chance that could happen to me?"

"Oh my yes," Farnsworth said. Fry swallowed. "But it's so remote that it isn't worth worrying your pretty little head about."

Fry grumbled something about sexism and turned to leave. She was almost at the door when Farnsworth spoke again.

"Miss Fry, there is one thing that I haven't mentioned yet." Fry turned, glanced across the room at Leela again and then looked at the Professor. Farnsworth worried at a pile of papers and books on a workbench, eventually drawing out a few scraps of slightly singed paper. "It's probably nothing, but there's a few oddities that have been thrown up by my calculations. They're the only reason I haven't tried a large-scale experiment yet."

"What is it?" Fry watched the Professor leafing through his notes with a strange worry squirming around in her guts. Leela stood nearby, her face a picture of sympathy.

"I don't really know," Farnsworth said eventually. He put the papers down. "All my simulations work perfectly. The transitions to and from the alternate universal matrix work without any incident at an atomic scale," he said, glancing at the hole again. "Almost... there's a lot of uncertainty involved when you get above anything the size of a carbon atom. If it wasn't for that I would have been able to switch you back several weeks ago."

"If it's about risk, Professor, I'd be willing to take it," Fry said, looking at Leela again. Leela looked back, uncertainty creasing her brow for a moment. Then she looked away.

"Ohh, I was quite happy to risk your life already, Miss Fry, the problem is risking everyone else's as well. I have to be certain of that before I try and I won't be certain until next week. Now come along, go find me some nice men to clean up this lab."

Leela grimaced and shook her head. "Come on Phi, lets go get some coffee," she said, grabbing Fry as she walked past.

"Bye Professor," Fry managed to call before she was pulled through the door.

* * *

"So tell me, Philippa... what on earth is going on?"

They were sat at their usual table in Maxine's, by the window, in a pair of comfy chairs that Samuel insisted they use whenever they came in. Fry looked out of the window at the occasional passing traffic and the gritty water of the Hudson river in the distance. She sighed. "I don't think I want to turn back."

"What? Fry... Phi..." Leela put her coffee down and leaned forward. "You _don't?_"

Fry shrugged and picked at her customary danish with a forlorn expression. "I do want to change back, but... I... I like this, our friendship. I'd be worried about losing it again."

"Oh, Philippa, that's sweet. I think we could probably keep it up if you're willing to try," Leela said, picking up her coffee again. "What about Bender?"

"Well, what about him?" Fry put her coffee down and folded her arms. "He's boorish and rude and, and loud, and he smokes those damn cigars even when he knows I hate them. He never made an effort to be _my_ friend."

Leela blinked at Fry's outburst. She leaned back and thought about it for a moment, as a strange worry began to manifest. "Oh lord. I screwed up," she said at least. Leela leaned forward again and took Fry's hand. "I really screwed up didn't I?"

"What are you talking about?"

"My advice. I told you to back off and let him work it out himself, but I didn't think about how you'd respond to his reactions... I'm sorry Phi. I think it was my fault."

"But he reacted exactly how you said he would whenever I tried to make up."

"Yes, but after your change you weren't _used_ to the way men react any more," Leela said with a sad smile. "You said it yourself, your mind and body are completely different. What you remember doing in a given situation wouldn't apply now, because you _think_ differently."

Fry nodded slowly. "Yeah, that's true. Actually I have a lot of trouble remembering how I used to act... well except for the more memorable moments," she added after a moment of thought. "It's all so... grey. Like I don't care about it any more."

"So that means that you wouldn't be able to communicate with him properly," Leela finished. She glanced over at the counter. Samuel waved to her. "Men communicate with women very differently to the way they communicate with each other. The problem is, Bender still can't see you as a woman, which means you'll have to either convince him to see you that way or try and ride things out until you change back."

"If I ever do," Fry said. She looked out of the window and sighed again. "There's so much going through my mind right now, Leela. So many things I wanted to say to people that I've never been able to say before because it would have sounded weird, or because I just didn't think about it. I can say them _now_ because they _don't_ sound weird."

"So you're smarter? I knew it!"

Fry's eyebrows creased together. "I wish..." she rattled her fingers on the table and smiled again. "I see some things more clearly than I used to but I'm not smarter. I can just say things that I couldn't before."

Leela twisted her empty cup around the table and fiddled with the handle. "There are some things you can't say now."

Fry blinked in surprise. This was about as close as she'd ever heard Leela come to admitting she had feelings for... but she couldn't, could she? The man she _might _have loved wasn't here. Fry put her hand out and gently touched Leela's arm. She smiled when Leela looked up.

A shadow fell across the table. "Not interrupting another moment, am I?" Samuel leaned forward and retrieved Leela's cup, giving her a wink as he straightened up. "I'll just get you a refill."

"Thanks Sam," Leela said with a coquettish grin. She fluttered her eyelid just a tiny little bit; Samuel grinned nervously and turned to leave. "Oh Samuel, wait a moment."

"Anything for you," he said, turning back. Leela patted the arm of her chair, motioning Samuel to sit down. He took a seat and smiled at the pair. "All right, what conspiracy are you beautiful creatures dragging me into?"

"Oh, nothing like that," Leela said. Fry thought she sounded a little flustered, but said nothing while Leela made eye at Samuel. For his part, the young man just sat and looked affable. "I, uh, that is _we _have been invited to a diplomatic function on Eridani. Movers and shakers and all that sort of thing," Leela said, her voice growing smaller. "And I sorta need a date."

"Why not take Philippa here? You two seem to make such a nice couple." Samuel smiled at Fry and then winked. Fry felt herself turning pink. Crap.

Leela let out an uncharacteristic giggle. "Oh you..."

"Well if you're going to let a catch like that go to waste..." Samuel stood up and gave Leela a florid bow. "My lady, I would be honoured to accompany you. When do we leave?"

"It's in a week."

"Ahh, great, then I have enough time find a temp to manage the cash register while I'm gone." Samuel picked up Leela's cup and smiled at her as he stepped back from the table. "Thank you. This means more to me than you realise."

"Oh you might not thank me once we're there," Leela said, and then grimaced as if letting out some sort of terrible secret. "You probably know about Zapp."

"The infamous Captain Brannigan? I heard something about a website, but go on."

Leela bit back on the angry reply that rose in her mind. "He has it in his head that that I'm only bringing a date along to make him jealous. Don't be surprised if he tries to challenge you to some sort of testosterone match before the evening is out."

"Ahh that's nothing I can't handle. Why, only last week I had to put down Theo over there for trying to argue that Shakespeare's plays were really written by Jeffrey Archer. That was pretty, uh... harrowing..." Samuel's boast faded under Leela's pitying gaze. "Not good enough, huh?"

Leela smiled and shook her head. "You're a far better man than he is, but remember this guy commands a starship. He could vaporise you from orbit if he wanted."

Samuel tutted and tapped his chin. He looked around the shop at the assembled regulars, most of whom had apparently swapped books in the last fortnight. There was a strange, strained silence over them that seemed to collectively lean toward their table. One even had his book upside down. "I do hope you aren't trying to discourage me," he said, and the smiled again. "Never mind, I'll find myself an armoured tux and we'll see how things go."

"Great," Leela said. She and Fry stood up. "See you tomorrow then?"

"Ah yes, chocolate and blueberry cookie day," Samuel said with a wry grin. Leela twisted her fingers together.

"Am I really that predictable?"

"Oh yes, that's what I love about you two. It makes my accounts so much easier." Samuel pulled a tray from a nearby table and started cleaning up their plates. "I'll see you," he said as he walked away. Leela watched him go, her cheeks ever so slightly flushed.

"I never thought I'd see _that_," Fry said, putting on her coat.

"What?"

"You. Fluttering like a little girl." They stepped out and made their way to the door, which Fry opened in what would have been a gallant gesture at one time. "I mean, I'd always hoped to see you acting that way toward me, though, god knows if I would have actually noticed it back then."

"I was not 'fluttering'," Leela retorted. "Much..."

"Face it Leela, you were this far from tearing his clothes off there and then. Why don't you two just-"

"Phi, I appreciate the gesture but, really, it's a little weird." Leela pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "What I mean is-"

"What you mean is that you still sometimes see me as the old Fry, too," Fry said. She put her hands behind her head as they walked, enjoying the sun on her face. "Don't worry about it. Even if you don't get used to me this way at least we're together, sorta. If it makes you happy to be with Sam then you don't need to worry about my feelings. I can live with it."

"But Philippa, what about the Professor turning you back? From what he's saying it'll just be a couple of weeks from now," Leela said. She took Fry's arm and pulled her close to the wall. "When you change back you'll be a man again. Even if we're good friends, all your old feelings will be back. What if... I... and, that is, if we..."

Fry turned away and looked up at the sky. "I don't think about it," she said eventually, turning her gaze to the planet express building down the street. "You know me, Leela. If I went around thinking about the future in that sort of detail I'd go crazy. I'd be _you_."

"So I'm crazy am I?"

"Well..." Fry shuffled her feet. "Okay, bad example."

"A minute before you were talking about how you didn't want to change back," Leela said. Fry sighed again.

"That was now talking. What I have now feels pretty good for me. I might change my mind again in five minutes." She turned back to Leela and put on a goofy half-smile. Leela just clutched at her bag, watching Fry's face.

"I wish I could be that impulsive, just once," she said quietly.

"Asking Sam out on a date is pretty impulsive for you," Fry replied. She glanced back down the block to Maxine's, where an old couple were sitting on one of the pavement tables arguing over something. Her face softened for a moment. "That could have been us," she said, with just a hint of longing.

"It could still be in some parallel universe." Leela nodded at the thought, but then humphed and shook her head. "Nah. I wouldn't be caught dead in paisley."

* * *

Everything looks crystal-clear in space. The lack of any intervening haze of to bestow objects with a strange, almost terrifying clarity at distances that the human mind almost can't comprehend, yet even those distances are witheringly small compared to the vast gulfs of interstellar space. Entire planets can be lost, flung out from their parent systems to wander dark and cold between stars, rarely found except by chance encounters.

Commander Sethi Powall of the DOOP light corvette_ Arcturus _had never discovered a Wanderer before. They were rare, hard to find and tended to be flung from systems rich in heavy metals and exotic elements, which made them valuable, and made a discoverer... if not famous, then at least noteworthy. And rich. The DOOP paid a handsome discovery fee to any DOOP crew lucky enough to stumble across a Wanderer and Powall was quietly adding up how much of it would be left over once he'd bought himself that moon he had his eye on. Quite a lot, it seemed.

He glanced out of the _Arcturus's_ main observation deck at the distant black mass, only visible by the stars it occluded, and then at the faint orange speck that had attracted his ship here in the first place. It was another one of the strange flares that had been reported all over Orion's Arm for a few weeks before disappearing into the deeps. His standing orders were to pursue and catalogue any unknown phenomena of that description but, frankly, the draw of the Wanderer was just too much. The entire crew were quietly celebrating – or not so quietly for some of those off duty. He'd have to care for a few hangovers next duty shift.

Powall had returned to contemplating his moon when the comms crackled. "Commander? Bridge, we just got a reading from the Wanderer."

"What?" Powall sat up. "What sort of reading?"

"Some sort of infra-red spike. It wasn't there before."

"I'll be right up." Powall looked longingly at the Wanderer and then left the observation deck for the bridge.

"Ok, tell me what we've got," he said as he entered the bridge. The lieutenant on duty, a Neptunian woman who's name Powall had never been able to remember, shooed an ensign away from the main sensor display and brought up a replay of the last 30 minutes.

"Looks like several heat spots sitting on the surface," she said, pointing to the display, which altered to bring the relevant area of the Wanderer's surface into a plan view. "They aren't moving and they haven't changed intensity, but our preliminary scans showed that this body was completely inert."

"So... you're saying someone else got here first?"

"It's one option, sir," the lieutenant said, folding two of her arms. She manipulated the display with the other two. Powall tried not to grimace. "There's also the possibility of micrometeorite impacts, previously unrecorded seismic activity or more of those flares."

"I see." Powall stared at the display. "Take us to stand-by alert anyway, just in case. And make sure our discovery claim has been sent, I don't want some fraznick prospector stealing our moons, er, money."

"Already done, sir," the lieutenant said. She turned to the ensign, now stood on the far side of the cramped bridge, and repeated Powall's order before turning back to the display. "If I might venture an opinion..."

"Go ahead."

"Perhaps it would be wise to retreat to a standard remote observation orbit." The Neptunian fixed Powall with a stare. Powall tried to look into her pale blue eyes and gave up, looking away. He could never intimidate blueskins no matter how hard he tried. It didn't help that they reminded him of Vishnu, which brought up all sorts of bitter childhood memories of his Swamij beating the knowledge of the five forms into his head.

"I shall consider it, Lieutenant. For now-"

"Sir!" Another ensign turned from the weapons console. "Sir, multiple contacts, directly ahead!"

Powall strolled over to the command chair and sat down, bringing up an auxiliary display. "Identity?"

"Unknown sir, computer is currently classifying as heavy assault cruiser, equivalent to Argo class."

"Holy hells... intentions?"

"Apparently hostile sir..." the ensign tapped away at his console, his skin turning pale as he examined the readouts. "Uh... very hostile sir. Very very hostile. Weapons are armed, gun-ports open, shields raised and they appear to be moving to flank us."

"Get us out of here, now!" Powall turned to the Neptunian lieutenant. "Get a message to high command, hostile craft detected-"

"Sir, we have an ID on the craft," the ensign said, turning again. "They're Ruklisk sir."

"What? Aren't we-" An alarm sounded, warning of incoming fire. "Evasive action. Aren't we at peace with those sons of Shiva now?"

"Aye." The ship bucked as it sought to flee the closing Ruklisk cruisers. Their firing was a little erratic, missing the ship by thousands of metres, but one shot was true and crashed against the shields, ringing the little ship's hull like a bell. Powall winced. This wasn't good.

"We're deep inside DOOP territory, what the hell are the Ruklisk doing here?"

"Hiding," the lieutenant said, pointing at the wanderer. "We're about eleven light-years beyond Eridani sir, and moving toward earth at about point seven C relative. The chances of them finding this right before we did are astronomically small, they've probably been tailing this rock for the last century."

"Oh... right-" Powall winced as another shot crashed home, shaking the bridge and setting a dozen alarms squawking. They weren't going to survive many more like that.

"Engines hit sir, shields holding," someone shouted. Powall groaned.

"Tell me we have comms!"

"Stand by... minimal comms sir." Another impact. Somewhere below the deck Powall could hear a rending explosion and a strange, ear-piercing shriek as part of the lower deck started to decompress. "We've lost all propulsion sir. Port-side shields have collapsed, multiple breaches on decks four and five."

"Mahesha take them!"

"Perhaps we should abandon ship sir," the Lieutenant said, turning to look at Powall.

"No Lieutenant, we won't be doing that," Powall said, looking out at the closing cruisers, still tiny dots against the dark star-field. The bridge shook under another barrage from the nearest cruiser. "The Ruklisk _like _to take prisoners."

Something about the way he said it must have hit home, as a withering reply died in the Lieutenant's throat. She blinked and looked away. "I see."

"Engage the self destruct systems and then let the bastards have everything we've got," Powall said, turning to the weapon's officer. The ensign swallowed and nodded. "And get a message out, tell them them our situation, attach our last sensor sweep of the wanderer and start transmitting our status in real-time." The lieutenant nodded, pushing the comms officer away to carry out the order personally.

"I've set the message to repeat once it's completed," the lieutenant said as she turned back to Powell. She braced two of her arms against the console as the Arcturus shuddered under another barrage. "Our FTL comms are gone."

"Real space... it could take months for anyone to even notice the signal," Powall said quietly. He looked about the bridge, already devastated by the assault and noticed that his vision was starting to tunnel slightly. The ship must have vented most of its atmosphere already. His crew worked frantically to manoeuvre their crippled ship away from the attacking Ruklisk but they were starting to flag in the thinning air. "I just hope they get it in time. Weapons, target the nearest ship and let them have it."

"Firing all weapons sir," the weapons officer said. Powall sat back and thought about his moon as wave after wave of weapons-fire streaked toward the closest Ruklisk vessel. It was unlikely they'd even make a dent on such a massive ship but at least they'd die relatively painlessly.

"Incoming!" someone shouted. There was a momentary shudder as the impact started, and then Powall knew nothing more.

* * *

The week passed by at an agonising snails-pace, with very little work to fill the time. Fry moped about in Bender's closet, watching TV, playing a few games and trying to figure out how she could get back into Bender's good books. There didn't seem to be much chance of it though; twice, now, she'd found her stuff dumped by the door, although both times Bender had either forgotten to change the lock-code or couldn't be bothered, and he didn't seem to care when she moved herself back in. Perhaps it was the rent thing again that held him back. Or perhaps he was trying to find a way of reaching out to her.

Nah. Definitely the rent thing.

With the lack of work came a lack of pay, though Fry didn't have as much trouble as the others thanks to the tax rebate that she got for being a woman in what used to be a man's job. Hermes had eaten the waiver the day he found out and then spent the entire afternoon locked in his office trying to calculate how much the damaged paper would be worth as a tax write-off. Of course Amy didn't have problems either, thanks to her parents, and Zoidberg didn't seem to notice the sudden lack of income. Leela was probably having a hard time of it but, Fry realised, she would be too proud to admit she was having a problem until the debt collectors were knocking down her door. Although she did sell her couch again.

Fry's biggest concern was Professor Farnsworth. The Professor spent all his time in his lab where, mixed in amongst the usual background buzz of small explosions and strange chemical smells, was a strange sensation that struck Fry whenever she was in the building. A sort of tickling sense of wrongness that fizzled at the base of her spine and wouldn't go away, and which seemed to amplify whenever the Professor was experimenting with the universal matrix or whatever it was he'd called it. With the tension she had at home, Fry was spending more and more of her time at work, lounging around and waiting for something to happen.

For the whole week, virtually nothing. The company had enough of a surplus to keep the bills paid and the ship maintained, which was a stupidly easy job while they weren't crashing it every few days. Apart from that work was non-existent.

Fry was getting adept at guessing when Farnsworth was experimenting on her predicament. Toward the end of the week he spent nearly all his spare time on the problem, apparently quite enjoying the challenge of altering the very fabric of the universe.

Finally, the day before they were due to leave he seemed to spend most of the morning repeating the same experiment over and over again. Shortly after lunch Farnsworth quite suddenly turned up in the employee lounge and handed Fry a note. "Look after this for me" was all he said before returning to the lab. An hour later he came into the room holding a similar piece of paper and then looked around, his gaze abruptly resting on the clock. With a slightly more confused expression than he normally wore he turned and retreated from the room again, mumbling under his breath. Fry looked at the folded note and, for once, managed to overcome her latent curiosity. She pocketed the paper and opened another beer.

The sun was low when the others started to arrive. Normally Fry would have gone home by then but she just couldn't deal with the prospect of facing Bender on what was rapidly becoming his turf. She'd packed a few necessities that morning and stashed them on the ship, along with an evening gown and some other formal wear that Amy had picked out for her.

The door rattled as someone entered. Fry stood up, dropped her empty beer behind the couch and smoothed down her shirt as the lounge door opened. It was Hermes. He looked at Fry, seemed about to say something and then turned away.

"Well hi, Hermes," Fry said under her breath. "Nice to see you too."

Hermes' shoulders tensed but he didn't reply. LaBarbara entered a moment later and made a beeline for Fry. "Goodness, is that really you, Fry?"

"Last time I checked," Fry stuttered as LaBarbara swept her up in a great big hug that lasted just a little too long to be comfortable. Fry squirmed her grasp. "Ah-heh, it's nice to see you too."

"You sure have changed. When that husband of mine told me what happened, I didn't see to believe it, but here we are!" LaBarbara leaned closed to fry. "So, how you enjoyin your time as a woman? You had yoursel any fun yet?"

Fry swallowed and let out a nervous giggle. Fortunately Amy's arrival gave her the escape she needed. Fry harried LaBarbara over to Amy and then shot over to the far side of the room, putting the table between them and herself.

Leela arrived a moment later, sporting a large case with airholes drilled in it. She shrugged at Fry's quizzical expression and headed straight for the ship, shortly followed by everyone but Fry herself.

Then Bender arrived, sporting a cigar that was, surprisingly, unlit. He strolled across the lounge and sat opposite Fry.

"Hey Bender."

"Fry." Bender sat back, chewing on his cigar with whatever passed for teeth in that mouth of his. He took out the stoogie and stared at it. "These things don't look so cool when they aren't lit."

"No," Fry said. She took a deep breath, expecting Bender to light up and blow smoke in her face like he always did. Nothing happened. "Bender? Are you okay?"

Bender laid the cigar on the table and stared at it. "As a robot I don't usually feel much in the way of emotion. I could light this thing up and then set your hair on fire with it and all I'd think about was how incredibly funny you looked."

"You aren't doing it though," Fry replied. She touched her hair. She'd got quite proud of her recent styling attempts, it wouldn't put her in the best of moods if she lost it all. "I hope?"

"Sometimes I do feel emotions," Bender continued, picking up the cigar again, turning it this way and that. "I don't like the ones I'm feeling right now. They're distracting me from my work."

"Bender you don't have any work," Fry said, folding her arms. "How can you be distracted from doing _nothing_?"

"Hey, I never tell you how to feel emotions!" Bender sighed and put the cigar away. "Fry, I can't live with you this way. I can't have any _fun_. When you were a guy I didn't think twice about bringing a few fembots home for a little... awww!" Bender's hands crashed down on the table. "See? I can't even _talk_ to you about it any more!"

"Why? It's not like you ever had that problem around Leela and Amy," Fry retorted. She pushed her chair back just in case Bender did something more destructive to the table. Bender peered at her, then folded his arms and looked away.

"That's because they've always been women, and _they _don't live with me." He stood up and paced for a moment. "All my memories record you as a man, and now you're not. It's wrong."

"'Does not compute' huh?" Fry laughed at her own joke until she noticed Bender wasn't laughing with her. In fact he was glaring. "Okay, not funny. Look, Bender, if it makes you feel better you can pretend I'm someone else, or I can move out or something."

"I don't know about that," Bender said.

"What, the rent? Bender..."

Bender turned to look at Fry, and for the first time she saw the emotions he was feeling, however badly the were expressed. Bender sighed. "Fry, if it was just about rent I would have got some other meat sack to pay and thrown you out weeks ago."

"You did try to throw me out a few times," Fry pointed out. She stood up and moved around the table until she was near the door. Bender followed her a few steps.

"That? Uhh..." Bender's fingers tapped out something in binary as he thought. "Spring cleaning?"

Fry rolled her eyes. "Har."

"Look, I'm really trying to reach out here Fry. I got a book on how to talk to women and everything!" He reached into his chest compartment and pulled out a tattered book as proof. Fry took the book and skimmed through the pages, though none of it seemed particularly ground-breaking. She passed it back. "I can do this," Bender said, closing his chest compartment again. "I even used that phrase. 'Reach Out'. Easy!"

"The thing is, you might not have to for much longer," Fry said. She felt a strange tingle in her neck and glanced up at the ceiling; was the Professor was doing the same experiment again?

"So you're telling me-"

"This time next week I'll probably be a guy again."

"Oh." Bender looked away. Fry tried to catch his eye again, walking around until she was in front of his face, but he kept turning away until his head was facing backwards.

"What's the matter, I thought you'd be happy?"

"Yeah. I think my emotion circuits must be faulty or something," Bender said, letting out another sigh. "It certainly can't be because I'm getting used to the way things are now."

"You... want me to stay like this?"

Bender suddenly turned and looked at Fry. "Hell no! I want my friend back!"

Fry shook her head and smiled. "I am your friend, Bender." She glanced at the clock and noticed the time. "Oh hell, come on, we'd better hurry or they'll leave us behind."

"Great, you go and I'll sell all your girly stuff on e-bay." Bender laughed until Fry hit him with a chair. "Ow..."

Bender stumbled forward and whacked his head on the table, sending a spray of sparks into the air as he dislodged some vital piece of equipment. Fry closed her eyes and let out a frustrated sigh. She dragged the concussed robot out to the hangar, where Leela was waiting at the bottom of the ship's gangway, tapping her foot. She tapped her wristbox and glared at Fry.

"I'm sorry!"

"We're going to be late. What were you doing anyway," she added, looking down at Bender. "Or do I want to know?"

Fry shook Bender's arm, which promptly fell out of its socket. "Probably not. Can you help me get him up the stairs?"

Leela hooked her arm under Bender and lifted him upright. "Ugh, I forgot how heavy robots could be. Zoidberg!"

The decapodian appeared at the stop of the gangway and peered down at Leela with a pleasant expression. "Hello."

"Zoidberg, be a dear and drag Bender up the stairs for us will you?"

"Oh, so now I'm a lifter why not..." Zoidberg seemed to almost dribble down the gangway. He looked at Bender. "Hmm, this robot is seriously ill. Tell me Bender, have you punched yourself in the head recently?"

"No," Bender replied.

"Perhaps you should then!" Zoidberg grabbed Bender's legs and started hauling him up the steps. "So are we going anywhere interesting for our holidays this year, hmm? I expect we're going somewhere with lots of sandy beaches. Zoidberg _loves _sandy beaches, so many different kinds of free food... And _we're_ going! You're so kind."

Half way up the stairs Bender grabbed old of the rail and suddenly pulled himself upright. "If I walk the rest of the way will you stop talking?"

"Do I still get to join you on the beach?"

"No!" Bender stormed up the stairs and into the ship, trailed by a sad looking Zoidberg.

"I guess the Professor isn't coming," Leela said as they climbed the steps. Fry paused near the top and looked back across the hangar.

"Guess not," she said, before entering the ship. Fry followed Leela up to the flight deck and took a seat by the communications console.

Amy was at her usual place by the engineering console, and Bender was lounging on the observation couch at the front of deck in a thick pall of cigar smoke. The others were sequestered in their cabins. Leela sat herself down in the captain's chair and stared at the front windows. "Well, we'd better get this show on the road."

"What about Samuel?"

"Oh, we're picking him up," Leela said as the ship's engines wound up to full power. They lifted out of the hangar and turned west, drifting along a few hundred feet above the Hudson river until they reached an apartment block on the river-bank. Leela set the ship down in a park just beyond the apartments. "I'll be right back," she said, before running from the ship.

Bender blew a smoke-ring toward the ceiling. "Feh. Show-off."

Fry couldn't help but agree.

* * *

The apartment block was fairly typical for the district. Low rent, but not minimal, and quite well appointed. Leela was about to press the buzzer for Samuel's apartment when he appeared at the lobby door. "Leela!"

"Hi Sam." Leela grinned and took Samuel's hands in her own. "It's nice to see you. Are you all packed?"

"Got everything I need right here," Samuel said, holding up a hold-all. "I figure we aren't going to be there long enough to justify more than a couple of days worth of underwear."

"That's... nice, Sam. Very nice." Leela looked to one side for a moment, then beamed at Samuel. "Come on, we're in the park."

"Yes, I saw the landing lights..." They walked down the road toward the park entrance hand in hand, both smiling private smiles.

"So, what's the deal with Philippa then?"

"Hm?" Leela stopped in her tracks. "What about her?"

"Oh, you two seem to be very close," Samuel said shortly. He hefted the hold-all to a more secure position before continuing. "First time you came into Maxine's I thought you were a... well..."

"A what, couple?" Leela laughed, and Samuel couldn't help but smile again. He let out a laugh of his own and shook his head.

"Crazy isn't it?" They walked on a little distance in a companionable silence, until Samuel spoke again. "Still, you two are awfully close, and you talk about some weird stuff. If I didn't know better I'd almost think Philippa used to be-"

"If I were to explain it I'd have to understand it myself," Leela said quietly. She looked at Samuel, her eye betraying a hint of confused longing. "It's complicated, lets put it that way."

"Complicated. Got you." Samuel paused at the park gates and looked up at the dark bulk of the Planet Express ship towering over them. "So this is your ship is it?"

"Well I fly her a lot," Leela said with a modest shrug. She took Samuel's hand and lead him toward the gangway. "I can give you a tour if you want."

"No, no, I've seen ships before," Samuel said, trailing behind Leela. He pulled back as they reached the bottom of the steps, pulling Leela around to face him. "The ship isn't what I'm interested in."

"Oh. Uhh..." Leela looked up into Samuel's eyes and smiled. "I suppose not."

They stood there for a while, just looking at each other. Then Samuel looked up at the darkening sky; a few stars were starting to appear. "Incredible really. I've been on a few journeys out there but I never looked at the stars before. You get to look at them all the time."

"Yeah..." Leela didn't bother looking up at the sky. She stared at Samuel with rapt attention until he looked back at her again. Leela turned pink and looked at the floor. "We... we should probably get going," she said, feeling strangely awkward.

"In a moment," Samuel replied. He brushed his hand against Leela's face. "You know, I think I fell in love with you the moment you walked through my door," he said. Leela coughed and looked away, trying to hide her blushing cheeks.

"Samuel..."

"No, don't say anything," Samuel said as he gently turned Leela's face back toward him. "Whatever happens later, whatever you're thinking, it doesn't matter. This moment is everything."

Leela bit her lip and nodded a tiny nod. She closed her eye.

Fry watched them kiss from the shelter of the gangway, glad that the shadows of the hatch were hiding her face. She felt light-headed as she watched, her stomach fluttering with unaccustomed jealousy and loss. Her mouth was dry. She bit down on her knuckle to muffle a quiet sob as they kissed more passionately, yet there was no passion to her sadness. Fry backed away before their kiss broke, unable to watch, unable to face the final, inevitable conclusion of her change. There was no insane jealousy, no anger at another touching Leela, being close to her in the ways she had once desired. There was nothing but a void. The sudden emptiness would have overwhelmed her but for a single spark of something that might have been love, that let Fry see beyond herself for just a moment.

Leela was free of a burden she had carried ever since they had met. A brief smile played across Fry's face as she retreated to her cabin, even as the tears started to well up in her eyes.

* * *

In the twilight of the employee lounge Professor Farnsworth paused and stared at the note in his hand, momentarily wondering why he'd come down with it, and then at the clock. He grumbled and put the note on the table, then returned to his lab.

* * *

In the twilight of the employee lounge Professor Farnsworth paused and stared at the note in his hand, momentarily wondering why he'd come down with it, and then at the clock. He grumbled and put the note on the table, then returned to his lab. A chance gust of air lifted the note and carried it to the edge of the table, where it teetered for a moment before flopping to the floor.

* * *

In the twilight of the employee lounge Professor Farnsworth paused and stared at the note in his hand, momentarily wondering why he'd come down with it, then at the clock. He was about to put the note on the table when he saw another piece of paper lying on the floor next to it, folded up the same way. Farnsworth grumbled and picked up the note. He unfolded it carefully and read the note it contained.

"Oh," he mumbled, looking up at the lab. "Oh my..."


	5. Lets Party!

**Chapter Five – Lets Party!**

Twenty-eight hours. It wasn't their longest trip, or the furthest they'd flown, but on those trips Fry hadn't been trying to avoid anyone. Now she wasn't sure if there was anyone on the ship she could even talk to. Bender was still trying to work out whether he wanted to accept her, Hermes wasn't talking, LaBarbara was talking too much and Leela was... busy. About an hour after take-off she'd put Amy in charge – Amy! - and disappeared into the bowels of the ship with Samuel for what she claimed was going to be a tour.

"Yeah right," Fry muttered. She stared at the wall of her cabin – adorned by a poster of some hunk Amy was lusting over, plus a few pictures of Kif and some other flotsam. Amy was probably the only person she could talk to and conversations with her were usually quite limited, as she'd found out during the first few days of sharing her cabin. What had seemed cute and familiar to Fry as a man was just boring and repetitive to Fry as a woman. "To hell with it."

She stood up from the bed and crept out into the corridor. Empty. Fry walked toward the flight deck, her stockinged feet silent on the composite decking, and paused at the entrance. Amy was slouched in the captain's chair with her feet up on the control column, snoring. Beyond her, Bender was still lounging on the couch, though the haze of cigar smoke was gone and a bottle of cheap liquor was propped up on the arm.

Fry crept around the edge of the flight deck until she could see Bender a little better. He was reading. She peered at the book, which seemed to be another "how to talk to women" instruction manual. Fry shook her head and smiled at the thought of Bender actually trying to learn something. Perhaps he wasn't such a bad friend. She edged back out of the flight deck and padded along the corridor, looking for somewhere quiet that wasn't her cabin.

She passed down through the galley, paused for a moment and wondered if she should get herself a snack, but then decided against it. It would only end up on her- Fry shook her head to try and clear the thought out. She quickly left the galley, returned to the top deck and carried on toward the aft, where there were a few nooks and crannies to be found in the engineering spaces.

Just before the 'brain' room Fry found a small access panel open. She peered in; a short crawlspace lead into a larger chamber right up against the inner hull. It seemed quiet enough, so Fry crawled in and shuffled along until she was able to stand almost upright.

The chamber was quite long, taking in a fair portion of the ship's aft section. Further along Fry could see more access ports. She stooped along the chamber, looking for somewhere to curl up for a while.

Suddenly Fry heard voices echoing from an access hatch up ahead. The hatch was unsealed and left partly open, letting a sliver of light shine down into the crawlspace. Fry edged toward the hatch and peered through the gap left at its edge. Her stomach bucked; she could see part of Leela's cabin; the voice was Samuel's. Fry shuffled into a more comfortable position, her heart racing even as she tried not to think about what she was doing. She put her head back against the bulkhead and listened.

"You still haven't told me what's between you and Philippa," Samuel said, his voice sounding a little sleepy. There was a rustling of bedsheets and a momentary silence that Fry's mind filled with all sorts of disturbing mental images. She bit her knuckle again in an effort to keep silent.

"That's... it's a long story," Leela eventually said. More rustling, and then a thump as someone got out of bed and started pacing. A shadow passed across the hatch.

Samuel's turn again. "We have plenty of time, you know," he said.

"There are a _lot _of things we could do with that time," Leela replied with a husky voice. Fry tried to think about something, _anything _else. _Pancakes pancakes pancakes... and coffee... damnit!_

"Give me a break, Leela, I'm worn out..."

"Ohh... poor Sam." More sheets rustled, and then another lengthy silence followed. "All right, even if I tried to explain everything you wouldn't believe me. I still don't understand all of it myself."

"Try me. Come on Leela, seriously, I'm all ears."

"You're all _something_," Leela said. Samuel chuckled. More silence. Fry almost imagined she could hear-

"You love her, don't you," Samuel said suddenly. The sheets rustled again and someone, presumably Leela, suddenly paced to the far side of the cabin. "Oh come on Leela, it's obvious that there's something between you two. You're more than just friends."

"It's complicated."

"Complicated? This ship is complicated. The Espresso machine in my shop is complicated. This..." A second set of feet thumped against the deck. "Leela, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"No, it's ok. It's fine. It's just difficult to explain."

"It's all right. If you don't want to talk about it, I'll understand," Samuel said. "After all, who am I to judge?"

"You're a good man," Leela replied. She let out a sigh, and the bed creaked as they both sat down again. "The truth is, I did have feelings for Fry, and she had feelings for me at one time, after a fashion... I... I sort of blew it. Something changed, I can't really say what. I didn't know how I felt. I still don't know now but she was... oh, it's too complicated."

"She seems to have gotten over it pretty well," Samuel said.

"Yes, she has. She's a good friend. In fact she's the best friend I've ever had, always so quick to forgive me and forget mistakes I've made, but I only noticed recently. These last few months have been the best of my life in a lot of ways. I feel... free, around her, like I can tell her things that I can't tell anyone else."

"Even me?"

"Hey, some things man was not meant to know," Leela replied playfully. More silence. "Wow, how did you know about _that_..."

"Lucky guess."

"Ahh..." Leela giggled and the bed creaked again.

"Sooo, did you two ever-"

"That's really none of your business."

"Oh. Well. Are you ever going to explain this to me or will I just end up with the word 'complicated' tattooed on my forehead?"

"I might do that anyway," Leela said. "Or perhaps down here... hey, I thought you said you were worn out!"

Fry shuffled out of the crawlspace and moved as far down the chamber as she could, her palms sweaty and her heart still racing. She hunched up at the far end of the chamber, near to where she had originally crawled in. _Best_ friend? Best friend had always been part of what she'd wanted 'before', though not all. But, then, priorities change. As far as Fry knew, Leela had never talked about her like that before. A tear trickled down her cheek but she ignored it, preferring to concentrate on the warm feeling just underneath her breast.

Fry crawled out of the access and sealed it up. She dusted herself down, looked about to see if anyone had seen her, and then crept back to her cabin.

For a while she just sat on the bed with her chin resting on her hands as she stared at the wall. A faint smile would brush her lips every now and then. Eventually, though, the boredom set. Fry looked around the cabin; her eyes came to rest on the dress hanging in the half-open closet, still wrapped in plastic. Taunting her.

Fry walked up to the dress and looked at it. The plain white material shimmered as she lifted it, like silk, but somehow lighter and with more intensity. She peeled back the plastic and lifted the dress from its hook, then carried it over to the mirror, where she wrapped the airy cloth over her front and posed a few times. For once Amy had let sense override her random shopping urge. The dress was perfect.

"_Papa Echo Sierra zero zero one, Eridani Orbiter Control, you are cleared for pre-entry orbit at level one three two zero azimuth delta fifteen._"

"Copy," Leela said, concentrating on her readouts. "Level one three two zero. Estimate perigee in... fifteen minutes."

"_Copy papa echo, set transponder to niner zero seven two and contact entry control on seven seven five point five, good day._"

"Copy, niner zero seven two, goodbye," Leela said, snapping her fingers at Fry, who quickly dialled in the transponder code and new contact frequency. "Damned Eridanis, always so uptight about following the rules," she said, before activating the comms again. "Hello entry control, this is Papa Echo Sierra zero zero one on alpha delta, uh, fifteen, level ahh... one three two zero perigee zulu thirteen, requesting vectors for entry to Fort Baker spaceport, over."

"_Hello Papa Echo Sierra this is entry control, level one three two acknowledged, please maintain your present orbit and await instructions._"

"Dammit. I mean, copy that." Leela turned off the comms and set the autopilot to stabilise their orbit. She twisted sideways in her seat and glared at the planet over Fry's shoulder. Fry sat back in her seat and smiled at Leela until the other woman noticed. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Fry said, still smiling. She turned back to her console. "Looks like you gave Samuel a very thorough tour of the ship considering the amount of time you took."

Leela swallowed and looked away. "Well, it's got a lot of interesting features," she said, blushing slightly. She looked up at Amy who just shrugged, then back at Fry, who was smiling again. "You seem to be in a very good mood."

"Oh yes, most definitely," Fry said, widening her smile a little. She put her arms over the back of her chair and spun it a little. "Wouldn't you be? I'm going to what promises to be a great party on another world with my best friends. Why wouldn't I be happy?"

"When you put it like that..." Leela rubbed her nose thoughtfully, her earlier moment of embarrassment forgotten. "It's just a bit sudden. When we left you seemed about ready to jump out of an airlock, especially when Samuel came on board."

Fry shrugged. "I prefer being in a good mood," she said. She sat a little more upright and smiled again. "I was jealous of you two, in fact I think I still am jealous, but I'm happy for you as well. If I can't be happy for my best friend..."

Leela gave Fry a quizzical look. "That's good to hear, Phi, but it's still a little odd. Normally you're only this happy when you're about to do something stupid."

"Like jumping out of an airlock?" Fry winked at Leela. "I'm just happy," she said glancing at Amy and then back Leela. They both looked at her with doubtful expressions. "Really!"

Leela shrugged and turned back to her console. "Be that as it may... oh what the hey, if you're happy then you're happy. What the hell is keeping these people?"

"You know," Amy said, "we could always try and use your connections to get our slot bumped up."

"You mean call Zapp? No way!" Leela folded her arms. "I wouldn't call that self-impressed blowhard for help if I was stuck in a hole and he had the only rope in existence."

Leela nodded, satisfied that she'd made her point, just as the comms crackled to life again.

"_Papa Echo Sierra zero zero one please adjust orbit to holding level two two zero zero, delta zero and acknowledge when complete. Estimated holding time eight hours. Over._"

Amy and Fry stared at Leela. She put her hands up. "All right..."

* * *

"Leela. So, we meet again. The game is a on the other foot." Zapp's face filled the viewscreen as he leaned forward and smiled benevolently. Leela folded her arms and glared at him. "To what do I owe this highly arousing pleasure?"

"You understand this is purely a business call," Leela said, maintaining her glare. Zapp raised an eyebrow and then tilted his glass in acknowledgement.

"It's certainly a very _erotic_ business call," he said.

"Cram it Captain. You're going to call up Entry control and tell them to give us a priority landing slot."

"And in return?"

Leela lowered her head for a moment, resting an hand on her forehead. She let out a frustrated sigh. "You don't get anything, Zapp. If we're stuck up here for the next eight hours we'll miss the conference."

"Ahh, tut tut Leela, every fair turn deserves another scratch on the back! This is _business_ after all... spend the evening with me."

"No."

"Half the evening," Zapp persisted, putting his drink down.

"No." Leela's voice remained firm. Zapp walked toward he viewer, an almost anguished expression on his face. He seemed about ready to plead with Leela, but at the last moment he looked aside. Leela cocked her head. "Emotional blackmail won't work twice, Zapp," she added.

"Oh. Well." Zapp's composure returned almost instantly. "How about one dance?"

"I wouldn't even consider it."

"Then I'm afraid you're in orbit for the next eight hours," Zapp replied formally. "Good evening Captain." He leaned forward to switch off the viewer.

"Oh, hell, wait!" Leela glanced at Fry and Amy. "All right, one dance. But you don't touch me anywhere except the hip, shoulder and hand or I'll have your balls as earings. Got me?"

"I... why yes," Zapp said, a leering smile creasing his lips. He gave Leela a mock salute. "I shall see you within the hour."

The screen blanked out. Fry let out the breath she'd been holding for most of the conversation. Some distant memory had twinged at her in oddly familiar ways after Leela's last threat. She'd almost felt sorry for Zapp.

"What are you going to tell Samuel?" Amy asked, glancing toward the back of the flight deck. Leela shrugged.

"Something. He'll understand, and hopefully this is the worst that will happen on this trip." She strapped herself in, waiting for the radio call. "Fry, go let everyone know we'll be landing soon," she said.

"Gotcha," Fry said with a cheery smile. She turned to leave, but Leela grabbed her arm and pulled her close enough to whisper.

"Samuel isn't in his cabin. I was, uh... showing him my diary."

"Sure you were," Fry said with a wide smile. She patted Leela's arm. "I won't tell anyone."

"Thanks."

"Though it was pretty obvious really," Fry added as she reached the flight-deck door. Leela scowled at her and tried to get up, but her seatbelt yanked her back into her seat.

"Don't push your luck," she growled at Fry.

* * *

Fort Baker Spaceport was barely worth of the name, consisting of a pair of landing pads with two huge hangars behind them and a few auxiliary buildings a short distance away. Snow sputtered across the sky and drifted up against buildings as the evening drew in, but otherwise failed to make an impression on the landscape thanks to the constant easterly wind that blew across the tundra to the east. The Planet Express ship wobbled slightly as Leela fought against the wind, but settled down perfectly on the pad. She was towed into the hangar almost before her engines were shut down.

Several ships were arrayed across the hangar floor, mostly the transports of visiting dignitaries not quite important enough to warrant a landing slot and welcome at Fort Abel in the Eridani capital. The crew surveyed the ships as they were towed into place near the back of the hangar, wondering who they belonged to. Leela peered at the wall directly ahead before completing her final shut-down.

"All right, time to leave," she said to the assembled crowd. She glanced around the bridge as the crew and their passengers trooped out, then slipped the keys out of the control column and dropped them in her pocket.

A loading bot was waiting for them at the foot of the gangway. "Come on, hurry up people, I don't have all day," it yelled, flapping an irritated crane arm at them. "Bags go in the back, heavier gear goes in the middle and no riding!"

Bender and Fry looked at each other and quickly lifted their feet from the bot's deck. Fry chuckled and pinched at her arm. Hermes cleared his throat.

"Now listen up you lackadaisical laggards," he said, pulling a clipboard from his ever-present briefcase as the bot slithered away. He consulted the papers on the board for a moment. "Our cars will be arriving in precisely ninety seven seconds which gives me just enough time to tell you the followin details. We're stayin in the same hotel that is hostin the conference, thanks to your Captain Brannigan, Leela, and we have passes for the after-conference dinner _only_, which means no wanderin around the city and no tryin to sneak out of the dining room or into other parts of the building. Especially you two," he added, pointing at Leela and Samuel, who both gasped and tried not to look guilty. Hermes looked up at the sound. "Oh. I meant you two."

Hermes shifted his accusing finger to Bender and Zoidberg. Bender threw up his hands in disgust. "Oh come on, what fun is a place like this if I can't rifle through other people's belongings?"

"You aren't here to have fun! And Zoidberg, I had to promise you'd stay away from the kitchens before I could even requisition the forms to apply for the permission to inquire about extending your visa, so you make sure you stay in plain sight at all times, you hear me? No kitchens, and no rummaging in the garbage."

"Aw..." Zoidberg slouched and made a sad bribbling noise.

There was a loud tooting outside, accompanied by the sound of a pair of hovercars pulling to a noisy stop. Hermes looked at his watch. "Ooh right on time. I love this place," he said with a distant smile. LaBarbara rolled her eyes.

A pair of limousines were waiting for them outside. Amy almost squeaked with joy at the luxury of their interiors and pushed her way to the front of the group, where she leaped into the first limo and spread herself out on one of the seats. "Wow, this is incredible," she said, fingering a bottle of what turned out to be a local and very expensive sparkling wine.

"I'm sure you get this all the time when you're at home," Leela said, climbing in opposite Amy. She cuddled up to Samuel as he sat down. Fry consciously looked away, glancing out of the door, where Bender was protesting at having to sit in the same car as Zoidberg. Their car pulled away a moment later.

"I don't get this sort of thing back home, mom and dad are pretty spartan when it comes to cars," Amy said, peering into cupboards and hatches. "Neat, a Ninplaybox three-thousand!"

"Ooh, let me see that," Fry said, pushing herself along the seat. "Does it have Space Invaders?"

"I... I don't think so," Amy said, poking at the controls with an unsteady finger. Fry grimaced and sat back.

"Man, I forgot, you don't have that any more..." She put her arms over the back of the seat and sighed sadly. "It's strange what you miss most," she added with a slight shrug. Leela gave Fry an odd look.

Samuel sat forward a little and peered at the Ninplaybox. "Space Invaders. Isn't that an old videogame?"

"Yeah, I was one of the top scorers on it when I left the twentieth century," Fry replied. She closed her eyes and thought back to when she would spend hours on the arcade machine in Pannuci's. "I used to be a hotshot at that game, played it all the time when I wasn't on deliveries. One time I got my name on every single score slot, until some punk kid tried to beat my top score. I showed him a thing or two... of course then Mr Pannuci turned off the power and wiped it all."

"I thought most twentieth century women weren't in to that sort of thing."

"Oh I wasn't a..." Fry's eyes snapped open. She tried to hide her sudden acute embarrassment behind a cough. "That is, I was-"

"Philippa wasn't an average woman," Leela said, putting a hand on Samuel's shoulder. She wrinkled her brow and tried to look pleading. "It's..."

"Let me guess," Samuel said, slumping back in his seat. "Complicated, right?"

Leela nodded. "Uh-huh..."

Samuel shrugged and leaned his head back. He took a deep breath, let it out and smiled a little. "A riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma," he said quietly, then glanced out of the window. "Oh, I never thought I'd see one of those in my lifetime."

They had pulled up at a checkpoint manned by a nervous pair of local militia who were being watched over by a hulking Ruklisk. The terror stood a little apart from the militia, paying little heed to the humans as it watched the passing vehicles. Now and then it would shift an insectile leg or shuffle its spiky bulk as it craned its torso for a better view of the road. The alien's spines were slowly wafting up and down around its face and neck, concealing part of its face from view every so often, apparently, a sign of agitation and boredom. He flicked a clawed hand at the car and grunted something unintelligible to the senior militiaman. The militiaman nodded and waved the car through the checkpoint.

"And Zapp _stabbed_ one of those things?" Leela peered through the back window at the receding checkpoint. "He's braver than I thought..."

"As long as you don't get any ideas," Samuel said, taking Leela's hand with both his own. They smiled at each other. Fry managed to suppress her almost involuntary urge to make a retching noise. "He can have his dance if he wants it, but you're saving the last for me."

"Glech, come off it you two! All this sweetness is making my teeth rot."

"Oh, but when you're flinging yourself at Lieutenant Kroker it's all okay?" Leela frowned at Amy, but mixed it with a wicked smile. Amy primped her hair and looked away. "Not that you'll get much of a chance," Leela added, a look of doubt creeping on to her features as she looked out at the city. Ruklisk occupiers seemed to be standing on every other street-corner, whilst very few of the locals seemed to be out. Those that were on the streets were either pressed against the walls, too timid to even cross the streets, or had a strange glazed look in their eyes as they plodded about their business.

"I hate to ask a stupid question, but did anyone actually think about what was going to happen to Eridani when the Ruklisk take over?" Leela looked around the car. Nobody answered. She turned back to watch the streets, where a small group of locals were trailing behind a Ruklisk like tame animals, all of them wearing the same turgid look on their faces. "Zapp, what have you got us into?"

* * *

Fry sat on her bed and watched the wall. It was an interesting wall. For starters it wasn't Amy, and it wasn't naked. She twiddled her thumbs and traced a pattern from the floor to the ceiling.

"Come on Phi, it's not like you haven't seen it before," Amy said from somewhere over Fry's shoulder. Fry shrugged.

"Different circumstances," she said.

"But you're a woman now!"

"I didn't particularly like seeing naked men when I was a man," Fry replied, closing her eyes as Amy skipped into view. She risked a look. "Oh, underwear at last..."

"I can't help it if I'm a free spirit," Amy said, lifting a gown from one of her bags. She hugged it to her chest and spun around. "What do you think? Green or violet?"

"Uh... blue," Fry said, pointing at the hem of a dress that was hanging from another bag. She shrugged. "I like blue."

"Well, I'll try it, but I was leaning toward the green myself," Amy said. She pulled a few more dresses out and laid them on her bed, then stood and stared at them. Fry turned and looked at her dress, once again hanging in its plastic cover. She sighed.

Leela peeked around the door and frowned. "You two had better hurry up or we'll be late."

"Oh keep your hair on," Amy said. She closed her eyes and started to _ip dip_ the dresses on her bed. Leela scowled at her and then looked at Fry.

"Surely you can't be having trouble deciding too," she said with a wry smile. Fry shrugged and stared at the dress again, then looked at Leela.

"To be honest, it's a little odd."

"You've been wearing women's clothes for six months, how is this any different?" Leela walked over and sat down next to Fry, resplendent in a long black ballgown that glittered and sparkled like the night sky. She put her arm around Fry's shoulder and squeezed her a little. "Still, if you need help with anything..."

Fry looked at Leela, wondering if now was a good time to mention the decisions she was going to make. There were so many things... then a thought crossed Fry's mind. "Actually there is something you can do," she said, and gave Leela a nervous smile.

* * *

Bender tip-toed down the hall, moving from doorway to doorway the way he imagined soldiers and criminals did when they wanted to remain hidden. He reached the end of the hall and laughed quietly to himself as he started to unlock the door he found there.

After a moment the lock click and the door slid open. Bender peered in expectantly, his eyes scanning around for anything worth stealing. "Aw... crud. Another bust. Doesn't anyone have anything worth stealing around here?"

He turned from the room, making sure the door closed before he left, and made his way further down the corridor. "Perhaps there's something on the ground floor... ooh, they have safes in these places!" Laughing, Bender made his way to the elevators and took a car to the lobby. A concierge behind the desk gave him a haughty stare.

"Robots are not allowed out without an accompanying owner," he said sternly, pointing at Bender. "Do you have an owner?"

"No, but I wasn't planning on going outside either," Bender replied. He walked over to the front desk and leaned on it. "Have you got safe around here? My... 'owner', thinks I need to be put in secure storage for a bit. I'm very valuable to her."

The concierge looked down his nose at Bender as if not quite able to tolerate Bender's presence. He consulted a small book, which he then tucked into his waistband just inside his jacket, and smiled briefly and formally at Bender. "This way."

Bender followed the concierge into a room toward the back of the hotel. A large safe door filled most of one wall. A row of eight combination locks were equally spaced across the door, though the concierge didn't seem to bother with them when he opened it. He simply slipped a key into a slot hidden behind one of the locks, twisted it twice and then pulled on the door-handle.

The safe door swung back silently. Air gusted past as the pressure equalised, and Bender couldn't help rubbing his hands together with almost undignified glee. He glanced at the concierge. "So I just go in there, right?"

"Indeed. When will your owner wish to retrieve you?"

"Oh you can just come and let me out in about, oh, eight hours," Bender said, shuffling forward. He almost skipped across the vault's threshold and paused inside. Bright lights bathed the safe, which was painted a stark white inside, lined by hundreds of compartments and drawers. Larger items were piled here and there on the floor. Bender laughed quietly and crept forward.

He was just opening the first drawer when he realised that the safe door hadn't been closed. He turned and looked over his shoulder. "Hey, what's the-"

A loud, alien growl echoed through the safe and Bender's voice faded. He crept back toward the door and peered around it; a pair of Ruklisk were standing over the cowering concierge, who seemed to be pleading.

"Please, I will do anything, just... just let me go."

One of the Ruklisk reached out and grabbed the concierge by his neck, lifting him from the floor. "You think we would let a perfectly useful slave go running away?"

"But I'm too-"

"It doesn't matter what you are now, Hu-mawn," the second Ruklisk said, fluffing its spines menacingly. Leather creaked as the creature reached back and plucked one of its spines from its back, with barely a gasp of pain. "These creatures make such squishy slaves," it continued, eyeing the spine. It took out a knife and started whittling the end until a spit of bright green fluid began to ooze from it.

"They are not as squishy as the _koslety _in charge of their Democratic Order of Planets." The first Ruklisk laughed and held up the concierge again. "Do you have family, hu-mawn? Friends?" The concierge nodded. "Well say goodbye to them. I would say they might miss you, but by now they probably don't even know who you are."

The concierge struggled against the grip around his neck, legs flailing uselessly as he tried to wriggle from the Ruklisk's grasp to no avail. The second Ruklisk held up the spine and peered at it with satisfaction. He glanced at the first Ruklisk, who turned the concierge around and held him so that he was leaning forward. The second Ruklisk held the spine up and quickly stabbed it into the back of the Concierge's head. The man shrieked in pain and fell limp. Then he shrieked again as the spine's poison began to leech under his skin. The Ruklisk dropped him to the floor.

"This is the part I always love," he said, taking out his knife. He started to trim his claws while the concierge writhed on the floor, foaming at the mouth. After a while the man's thrashing died down and he lay still. The Ruklisk examined his nails and put the knife away. "Wake up, slave."

The concierge opened his eyes and sat up. His eyes were glazed and unblinking, his face slack and devoid of emotion. He pushed himself up and stood a little unsteadily, then slowly turned to face the Ruklisk. The alien pair seemed satisfied with this and turned to leave.

"Isn't it so convenient that these slave species always put themselves at our mercy," one said. The other grunted in agreement.

Bender tried to back into the safe. He almost made it, but tripped over a group of statues that clattered to the floor with a horrendous clanging noise.

"Eeep..." Bender scrabbled at the floor and tried to find somewhere to hide, but it was too late. One of the Ruklisk peered around the door and saw him. Bender sat up and looked back at the alien. "Uh... hi?"

The Ruklisk didn't bother answering, but simply raised a gun and fired at Bender, blowing him apart.

* * *

The bathroom was cool and surprisingly dry, and quite spacious, though Fry had chosen it simply because she was about to do something that needed no distractions, which in turn meant getting away from Amy. She leaned over the sink and stared at the mirror.

Leela drew out her lipstick and held it out to Fry. "Now I don't know what experience you have with these things, and frankly if it's more than a year old I don't _want_ to know." She lifted the cap and twisted until the applicator appeared. "Hold it close to your mouth and then move it slowly out from the middle."

Fry took the lipstick and stared at it for a moment. It was a hot pink, which looked quite attractive on Leela but might not work for her, though obviously she wouldn't know unless she tried. With great care she held the applicator near her bottom lip and pouted. Her hand hovered for a moment. "I'm not sure I can do this."

"Oh give it here," Leela said, grabbing the gloss. She lifted Fry's face and looked at it. "Your lips are quite thin, perhaps we can just plump them up a bit," she said as she waved the gloss over Fry's mouth. Fry felt a momentary greasy sensation as the gloss was layered on, which disappeared as it cured and bonded. "There, now make a kissy face again."

Fry pressed her lips together and then licked at the gloss. It felt almost invisible. She looked in the mirror. Leela had done a surprisingly good job, filling out her lips just a little without exaggerating them. Fry turned her head this way and that, admiring the way the gloss brightened up her face without making her look slutty. "Wow, look at me."

"If you want I can put on a little foundation and-"

"No, no this is fine," Fry said, touching her cheeks for a second. She licked her lips again. "I figured I should make an effort but I don't want to go overboard."

"Sensible girl." Leela dropped the gloss back in her bag. "Now, go get changed so we can hit the party. I think Amy will be done by now."

Fry nodded. She put her hand on the door handle, then paused and turned to look at Leela again. "Thanks, Leela. You're the best friend I could have right now."

Leela blushed and smiled.

* * *

Fry stood in front of a full-length mirror and admired herself again. The dress was more than perfect, it made her look _good_, even if she did say so herself. She twisted this way and that, making sure she wasn't snagged or wrinkled in an embarrassing way, even though she knew Amy was behind her somewhere, fuming at Fry for taking so long to change. Leela had gone off with Samuel several minutes ago and Amy was eager to get into the party. Fry didn't care. She was enjoying the moment.

"All right, you've seen yourself some more, now can we go?" Amy stalked over to the door and pulled it open a little too violently. "I'm missing all the _fun!_"

Fry sighed and looked heavenward. She gave herself one last look in the mirror and blew herself a kiss. "Why didn't you just go ahead and leave me?" Fry said as she joined Amy in the corridor and they started to walk toward the elevators.

"And miss the chance to see everyone drooling over you like idiots? Imagine how they'd feel if they knew," Amy said with a salacious grin. She smoothed down her own dress – orange, Fry noted – and grinned again. "This party is going to be so much fun. And I'll _finally_ get to see Kiffy! Isn't that great?"

"Yeah. Great," Fry said, examining her nails. Perhaps she should have coloured them. She glanced at Amy's fingers and saw she was even wearing some sort of extensions. They paused in front of the elevators and waited for a car to arrive. "I'm not sure I like the idea of people drooling over me. It's making me nervous," she said.

"Oh. I wouldn't know about that," Amy said brightly. Fry looked at her.

"You must have been nervous at your first party though?"

"Nope!" Amy smiled at Fry again and hopped into the elevator as soon as the doors slid open. Fry followed her cautiously, reasoning that something _that_ cheerful had to be dangerous.

It had to be attitude, she realised as the elevator began its slow descent to the ballroom where the after-conference party was being held. Amy assumed that everyone liked her, and so more often than not they did. She was shallow, but not in the vindictive sort of way, which meant she just didn't notice when people thought badly of her. Fry wondered if she could ever manage to be like that. Before she'd just not _cared_ what people thought but now, changed, she had become very conscious of other people's attitudes toward her. It permeated everything she did.

Being a woman was so complicated!

The elevator came to rest and opened at the head of a long, banking set of stairs that widened out on to the floor of a huge ballroom. Here and there a diplomatic Ruklisk stood by a wall or in a corner, ignoring the assembled species that thronged the ballroom floor as they swept their rolling black eyes over the assembly. A small orchestra was just completing the final segue of _Strawberry Fields_ to polite applause from the few guests who had actually deigned to dance. Fry spotted Hermes and LaBarbara near the orchestra chatting to a strange looking alien – obviously trying to get a lead on a contract. All work and no play. She crept forward and started down the stairs, keeping close to the rail.

Amy suddenly ran past her, waving her arm in the air and staring at a knot of diplomats near a buffet table. "Kiffy!"

The Amphibian detached himself from the crowd and ran across the ballroom, meeting Amy just as she reached the bottom step. They flew into a hug. "Oh Amy," Kif said, almost smiling. "I've missed you so..."

"Poor little Kif," Amy replied, stroking Kif's head. She swept the slender alien up in another hug and spun him around. "Kif, I want you to meet someone," she said as she put him down. Fry was just reaching the foot of the stairs, grumbling under her breath about how stupid her shoes were. She kicked her heels against the floor.

"I don't know how the hell you walk in these things," she grumbled, staring at her feet. Her calves were already starting to ache from the unaccustomed position. "I swear I will never make a joke about high heels again..." Fry looked up and found Kif and Amy staring at him. Amy raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. She turned to Kif.

"Kif, this is Philippa. She's-"

"A cousin," Fry said, and then screwed up her face to think. "Hubert Farnsworth's, um, cousin. Uh... a hundred and twenty times removed or something."

Kif looked Fry up and down with a vaguely confused air, then peered closely at her face. "You look a lot like Amy's ex," he said slowly, then seemed to snap out of whatever stupor he was in. "Uh, excuse me, I've been on tour with Brannigan for the last eight months. You tend to lose social skills."

"That's okay," Fry said. She leaned against the stair-rail and lifted one of her legs in the air with a pained sigh, twisting her ankle to relieve the pressure on her calf. "Oh man, it's like being a giant Barbie doll..."

Kif watched her with puzzled fascination until Amy noticed and batted him on the shoulder. He swayed under the impact but didn't seem particularly pained. "Ah, excuse me. Sorry Amy. I should get back to-"

"Lieutenant!" Zapp's voice echoed across the ballroom. Kif started trembling and looked wildly about, trying to find Brannigan; Fry spotted him making a bee-line for their little coterie, a determined look on his face. "Kif, you're supposed to be attending to me while I entertain these fine people," he said as he drew close. Zapp clamped a hand on Kif's shoulder and turned him around. "Why are you cowering over here like some kind of- why, what's this?"

Fry realised this sudden change of attitude was aimed at her. She put her foot down and looked up at Zapp. The captain was sweating slightly and seemed a little the worse for drink but, under all that flab, he did almost seem handsome. Something about his personality was-

"So, apart from being very erotic what do you do for a living?" Zapp wiggled his eyebrows and Fry saw him tucking a little brown book into his pocket. She groaned.

Zapp gave an ostentatious bow with a flourish of his hand, and then took Fry's hand and kissed it. Fry shuddered. "Please don't do that."

"Oh but I must," Zapp said, licking a knuckle. Fry squeaked and pulled her hand back. She suddenly had to lean further back as Zapp cast himself toward her, leering and grasping for her shoulders. There was a stink of cheap spirits on his breath, mixed with expensive wine and too much greasy food. Fry gagged and almost stumbled backwards under the onslaught.

"You're almost as erotic as Leela... say, where _is_ Leela?" Zapp straightened up and looked around the room.

"Probably hiding!" Fry said, pushing Zapp away. She backed up, ready to fend off Zapp's advances again but he wasn't interested any more.

The overbearing idiot grabbed Kif's shoulder again and pulled him up so his head was at Zapp's height. "Kif, I have to find her. She promised me a dance, and if I can time it right I might be able to convince her to take a look at my royal suite."

Kif sighed and let himself hang limp. It was easier. "Is that a euphemism, sir?"

"A youfer-what?"

"Never mind, sir..." Kif peered over his shoulder at Amy. "I don't suppose you know where Leela has gone?"

Amy shrugged and looked around the room. "I guess she's probably beating up some head of state to get a contract out of them somewhere," she said, eyeing Zapp's arm and hefting her purse. Kif saw the motions and quickly shook his head to warn her off.

"Sir, perhaps you should try the buffet," he said, pointing to the far side of the room. Zapp nodded thoughtfully.

"Good thinking, Lieutenant. The way to a man's bed is through his stomach. If she wants me, she'll be there." Zapp put Kif down – dropped him, more accurately – and straightened his uniform. He swayed slightly as he walked off toward the buffet.

Fry sighed and sat down on the stair. "I don't know how he ever managed to convince Leela to sleep with him," she said, massaging her ankles. Amy looked up from her place at Kif's side and shrugged. "He's an idiot. An _ugly_ idiot."

"Yeah, well Leela has a bit of a soft-spot for idiots." she said.

"I was an idiot and I never noticed _that _before." Fry's brow crinkled as she tried to figure out what she'd just said. It felt like she should be having one of those epiphany things right now but all she could think about was getting drunk. "Forget it, I'm going to get something to eat," she said, standing up. Fry looked down at her feet and frowned, then quickly pulled her shoes off. "I really don't know how you manage in these things."

Amy shrugged again. "You get used to it I guess," she said, helping Kif to his feet. She put her arm around the alien's slim shoulders and gave him a quick cuddle. "If you try hard enough you can get used to anything."

Kif smiled at Amy, the genuine smile that Fry had never seen him use around anyone else. She tied her shoes together and, giving the pair a final glance, slung the shoes around her neck and wandered over to the buffet table. Of course she was careful to avoid Brannigan, who was at the far end of the table stuffing a handful of canapés into his mouth. Fry loaded up a plate with snacks – what the hell, one night wouldn't ruin her figure, would it? - and meandered across the floor until she found an empty table. She sat down at toyed with her food, then sat back to watch the crowds moving about.

A flash of purple bobbed through the throng toward her and Leela finally emerged, trailing Samuel behind her like a lost puppy. They sat down next to Fry; Samuel stole a few items from Fry's plate. "Turnabout is fair play," he said with a wink. Fry shrugged.

"This place is giving me the creeps," Leela said as she glanced over her shoulder. "Have you seen the number of guards they have around here?"

"I hadn't really noticed," Fry said, rubbing her hand. Even though it made absolutely no sense she was sure she could still feel Zapp's tongue on it. She shivered. "Zapp is looking for you by the buffet."

"I saw, that's why we haven't eaten yet," Leela replied, looking at Samuel, who smiled briefly before stealing some more of Fry's food. He didn't wink this time. "Have you seen Bender or Zoidberg since you got here?"

"Nope. I haven't seen them since we got to our rooms." Fry said, turning to look at the buffet. Normally the Decapodian would have been hovering, for want of a better word, around the largest supply of food in the room. Perhaps that was why he was missing. "I guess they didn't want him hogging the buffet. I hope we're not eating him."

"I wouldn't mind so much if Zapp had the decency to go missing with them," Leela said, glaring at the man who, it seemed, was still managing to entertain a small group of dignitaries. The laughed and applauded as he finished some embellished tale with a flourish of his arms. Leela growled. "I'm going to find Bender. In case that idiot asks, tell him I died or something."

"My lips are sealed," Fry said around a half-eaten scotch egg. Leela screwed up her face at Fry's lack of manners but didn't say anything. She stood up and turned to Samuel.

"Coming?"

"Not like I have anything better to do," he said with a smile. Sam paused half way through standing and leaned toward Fry. "Thanks for the food."

They made a beeline for the doors at the far end of the ballroom and were swallowed up in the crowd. Fry sat back in her seat and resumed watching the crowds. There seemed to be a small commotion as someone made their way through the gathering toward a podium set up opposite the stairs. A security team started to move up around the podium, gently ushering people away from it until there was a respectable distance. Then, to rising applause, President Glab made her way up tot he podium, followed by Zapp and a an arrogant looking Ruklisk of some indeterminate but high rank. She held out her hands for silence.

"My good friends, we reach, tonight, a culmination of a process that has brought peace to our galaxy after a century of hostility. Thanks to the efforts of our gallant Captain, we have finally ended our cold war with the Ruklisk." Glab held up a glass, which was quickly filled by a waiter. She inclined her head to the man and held the glass higher. "To peace," she said, taking a large swill from the glass. The gathering joined her toast with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Glab put down her glass – obviously not her first of the night, as she swayed just a little – and looked out at the gathered leaders. She smiled benevolently. "Thanks to the efforts of our diplomatic teams the Democratic Order of Planets can now welcome the Ruklisk as equals. This new era of peace means that we no longer need to maintain our fleet at its current level. Last week I authorised the decommissioning of ninety-five percent of the fleet. Those ships not already docked are returning to their home ports even as we speak."

The room erupted, with some delegates yelling their disgust, whilst the rest either cheered, congratulated each other or tried to calm everyone down. Around the edges of the room the Ruklisk shifted on their feet and looked at each other. Zapp looked up at Glab, his face paling as he clenched his fists. He set his jaw and frowned at the floor. Glab, unable to find a gavel, started banging her fist on the podium for order with little effect. "Be quiet! All of you!"

Eventually the crowd settled down, with one or two leaders sporting minor injuries, including a few bite marks. Glab held out her hands. "The DOOP council are in the process of finding a new purpose for the remaining ships. Our militarism was a necessary response to the threats we faced in the last century, but that threat no longer exists. Now we are truly an organisation of peace, and to that end I am promoting Zapp Branigan to the rank of Ambassador General. The Ambasador will now give his thoughts on what we have achieved.

"I give you Zapp Brannigan."

Brannigan rose from his seat, wobbling and sweating profusely, shaken but unbowed. He pulled himself upright and walked up to the podium to a smattering of applause, lead by President Glab, and put his hand out to quiet them. "Thank you, thank you all. You know, I often say that history is made by putting the right man in the right place and letting, uh... history do the talking." There as an uncomfortable silence. Zapp scratched his side and peered at the crowd. He tapped the mike in front of him. "Is this thing on? Never mind. Today, I come to you not as a Captain, or an officer, but as a man. A man with needs, a man with desires. A ship. A crew. A woman at my side..."

Zapp gripped the sides of the podium and bowed his head. "I come to you as a man with victory in his hands, carrying the torch of peace through the dark valley of the shadow of war. I am not, by nature, a violent man but I always pull through when the chips are falling like flies to the slaughter. The loss of my fleet is a hard blow to my staying the course, however.

"I have prepared a few words of verse to commemorate this event..." Zapp reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of paper.

"Oh brother," Fry said, putting her head in her hands. It was going to be a long, long night.


	6. According to Plan

**Chapter Six – According to Plan**

"Leela, I'm not sure we're meant to be out here."

"Oh hush, what's the-" Leela's voice cut off as Samuel put a hand over his mouth. He gave her a stern look.

"Don't ever say that. Please?" He glanced up and down the narrow hallway they were in before letting Leela's mouth free again. "I've seen too many people brought low by that one phrase."

Leela licked her lips and shrugged. "If you want." She looked back along the hallway at the ballroom doors, which were a surprising distance away, then looked in the direction they had been heading. A few service doors were dotted along one wall, and near the far end of the hallway stood a broad emergency exit by a door to the kitchens. The crashbars had been almost bent off their hinges. "I think I know where Zoidberg is."

"Good, that means we can spend a little time not finding him yet," Samuel said with a salacious grin, wrapping both his arms around Leela's body and pulling her off her feet for a moment. She playfully slapped at him and laughed as Samuel bowled her into a darkened closet. "Now this is more like it!"

"Oh Sam, Sam, now really isn't the time," Leela said, reluctantly fending off Samuel's advances. He backed off with a hurt expression on his face and Leela's heart skipped a beat. But no, she had to be strong. Just for a few hours. "We have to find Zoidberg."

"Why?"

"Hermes will have our heads if we lose him," Leela said, narrowing her eye a little to make a point. It seemed to work. She straightened out her dress and turned to the door, then paused. "Oh what the hell," she said before flinging herself at Samuel. They landed on the floor with a loud thump. Samuel groaned.

"I think I fell on a broom."

* * *

The emergency exit was still closed when they reached it, but it had definitely been opened with extreme force at some point. Leela knelt down to examine it in more detail. "Looks like he might have been here," she said, straightening up.

"How can you tell?"

Leela pointed at the mangled crash-bars. "All the scraps of food hanging from it. He didn't do the damage to the doors though."

"Ah." Samuel gingerly pushed on the door. It swung open with barely any protest. "Ladies first?"

"Why thank you," Leela said, striding out into the alley behind the hotel. It was fairly mundane as alleys went, dark and musty from lack of use, and lined with massive grey bins full of kitchen waste. A pale shaft of ruddy moonlight shone from the tiny sliver of sky high above the alley.

Leela turned to the nearest bin and looked it over. The lid had been thrown back and the contents ransacked. Just about anything organic had been eaten. "Wow. He must have been hungry."

Samuel put an arm around Leela's waist and peered into the gloom. "Don't you ever worry about him going insane and eating everyone?"

"I doubt he'd have the courage to try," Leela replied. Nevertheless she tensed herself up a little and started looking for weapons, just in case. She paused and held up her wrist computer, pointing it down the alley like a torch. "Three bins down."

"I want one of those."

"They're government issue. Technically I shouldn't have this any more but they've never actually bothered to ask for it back," Leela said, leading Samuel down the alley as she counted off the bins. The sound of ravenous consumption began to percolate through the air as they neared the third. "I expect the forms are still winging their way through the central bureaucracy, which means my great grandchildren will probably get the request to return it. Doctor Zoidberg?"

Leela stepped up to the bin and put her hand on the lid. The omnivorous growling within quietened down and then stopped completely. "Doctor?"

The lid raised up a little and Zoidberg peeked out. "Oh, so they threw you out as well did they? Well you can come and join Zoidberg's party!"

Leela grimaced and held her nose. "No thanks, we're just making sure you're still around." She pushed the lid right back and peered into the bin, then wished she hadn't. "You aren't supposed to be out here Doc," she said as she turned away. Samuel backed off as well, waving his hand in front of his face.

"But there's so much food just going to waste out here. And look, I found a giant soup flask!" Zoidberg held up a large metal container with wires hanging from it. He turned it this way and that, prodding at the casing with a claw. "I've not found a way to open it yet, and the shell looks a little damaged but it seems to be sound. I'm making myself some soup for the journey home."

Leela looked at the container. "Oh my god... Zoidberg, you idiot, that isn't a soup flask."

"It's not?" Zoidberg peered at the container. "It's a coffee urn maybe?"

"No!" Leela grabbed the container and turned it around. A door was set into the side, with a hole blasted through it. "It's Bender!"

"Ohh... that would explain why the cafetiere kept sassing me." Zoidberg held up Bender's head, still stuffed with used coffee grinds. Bender rolled his eyes and spat out a pile of second-hand filter paper.

"You'd be sassing people too if you'd been blown apart by evil aliens and thrown in the trash!"

Leela took Bender's head from Zoidberg and peered at him critically. "I assume you're talking about the 'allies' Zapp gave us?"

"Oh, is that what they were? All I know is, they're big and ugly and they shot me when I was quietly robbing the hotel safe." Bender's rolled his eyes upward and peered at the sky. He seemed to think for a moment. "Oh yeah, and they said something about you all being slaves. I thought that was quite funny until they blew my head off."

Leela handed Bender's head to Samuel and reached into the bin to search for more of his parts.

"What are you doing?"

"We have to warn everyone," Leela said, pulling out part of a leg. "And we need as much of Bender as we can find as evidence."

Zoidberg clambered out of the bin holding Bender's body and an arm. "Does this mean the party's over?"

"If we get there in time it means you'll have helped to save the universe."

"Zoidberg would be a hero?"

Leela paused and looked at Zoidberg. He was smiling, which was a singularly disgusting sight, but strangely endearing in its own way. "As unlikely as it seems..."

"Hooray!"

"Hey, quit waving my arms like that," Bender said from beneath Samuel's armpit. Samuel patted Bender's scalp and shushed him. "Hey, watch it or I'll start biting."

"There's gratitude for you," Samuel said, holding Bender by his antenna and shaking him around. "Hmm. What marque are you?"

Bender frowned at him, since he couldn't really do much else. "Why do you care?"

"I used to run a small robot repair company in Nebraska. If you're a Unit twenty-five or under I can probably put you back together."

"Oh. Well in that case I'm a twenty-two. And I meant it about the biting thing."

Samuel smiled and held Bender up to his face. "If you're a twenty-two, you don't have teeth."

"That's never stopped me before," Bender said with a proud air that was only slightly marred by his lack of a body. Samuel twisted Bender's head around and peered into the base. "Hey where'd you go? Ooh... nice ass Leela," Bender added, then laughed until Samuel tweaked something inside his head. There was a flash of sparks. "Ow!"

Leela withdrew her arms from the bin and tried to shake the worst of the garbage off. She looked at the pile of parts that Zoidberg was holding. "I think that's everything. We'd better get back inside before someone sees us. Come on Zoidberg, hup hup!"

"All right, all right, I'm going already..."

"Now, Bender, you have to tell us everything that happened," Leela said as they closed the emergency exit. She looked up and down the hallway and then glared at Bender. Sometimes it felt like her eye was made for glaring. "No skimping on details."

Bender glared back. "Okay. The temperature was a balmy twenty-"

"Not _that_ much detail you, you... just tell us the part about slaves." Leela lead the group toward the ballroom. Bender sighed irritably.

"You humans can never make up your minds, no wonder Fry can't figure out what he wants. Okay." He sighed again. The group paused by the ballroom door. "The aliens are using some sort of weird mind-control drug to turn everyone into zombies or something, and they kept calling you all 'slave species' and laughing about how you always put yourselves at their mercy."

"Drugs can be counter-acted though," Leela said, trying to re-assure herself. "And if we tell everyone they won't be able to use them."

"Oh I don't know, the way they stabbed that guy in the back of the head with it looked pretty permanent to me," Bender said. He coughed. "Man, I need a cigar."

"So you're saying that they let themselves be talked into this gathering so they could bring everyone here?" Samuel cast a fearful glance back down the corridor. "Surely they wouldn't be able to convince the entire DOOP to just lay down and let them take over."

"They don't need to! They've got the entire Democratic Order of Planets in one place, and they have this entire planet under their control already. That idiot has us laid out on a platter for them!"

"Well when you put it that way..."

Leela pushed the doors open and stepped into the ballroom, quickly looking about. The entire room was silent, every delegate staring blankly in the same direction. A few were drooling. "Oh no, we're too late!"

"What the... Leela?" Zapp turned toward Leela's voice. He stumbled from the podium and lurched toward Leela with a determined expression on his face. The assembly began to look around, muttering as they slowly woke from their boredom. "Leela!"

"Oh lord..." Leela turned to Samuel and Zoidberg. "You two, stay here and keep Bender safe. I'm going to get Philippa and Amy. Then we need to find some way of telling everyone what happened."

"Twenty-twos have a video projector built into their left eye," Samuel said, turning Benders head this way and that. "I'm pretty sure this one is still working too."

"Great. Bender, can you play back what you saw?"

"I can, as long as you don't ask me to do a commentary. I hate those."

Leela shook her head. "All we need is the scary bit." She ran off into the crowd.

Zoidberg looked at Samuel and smiled his hideous smile. "So do I get to be the hero now?"

* * *

Leela battled her way through the madding crowd. The delegates were starting to get restless at the sudden interruption of their 'entertainment' and a few fights had already broken out between some of the more belligerent species. Leela ignored the surprised queries that were thrown at her in a dozen tongues and made a bee-line for Fry, still sat at her table near the back of the room. She looked around as she reached the table, trying to spot Amy. "Phi, have you seen Amy anywhere?"

"Last I heard she was going back up to our room with Kif. I didn't really want to know that," she added, making a face. Hermes and LaBarbara arrived a moment later – Hermes huffing from the exertion. He leaned on the table.

"What in the name of Niven is going on here?" he gasped. LaBarabra rubbed his back and scowled at Leela.

"Shame on you woman, for making my man exert himself so."

"I can't explain," Leela said, turning to face them. Hermes flopped down on a chair, still gasping. "You need to go with Philippa and get back to the ship. Phi, you need to find Amy."

"But-"

"Don't argue. Go find her and tell her to get the ship over here as fast as possible." Fry seemed about ready to talk back, so Leela simply hauled her out of her seat and stood her up. "Just do it!"

"Okay, okay, jeeze..." Fry grabbed her plate and slipped through the crowd to the main stairway, stuffing food into her mouth as she went. Leela shook her head – the girl would need to go on a diet soon if she didn't cut that out. "What an odd thing..." she looked at Hermes.

"Don't just stand there, we need to get out of here!"

"Great snakes of Apophis, mon... more running..." Hermes levered himself up, supported by LaBarbara. They staggered after Fry.

Leela looked back across the room to where Samuel was standing. He waved to her with Bender's arm and smiled. Leela smiled back and then started pushing back through the crowd to the podium, where Zapp was now leaning against the stage with a confused look on his face. _Hah, he couldn't keep up with a damned planet if he was standing on it_. The thought brought a grin to Leela's face, but it faded when she looked at the Ruklisk around the room. They seemed to have tensed up, and some even had their hands on their weapons.

"Brannigan," she called out as she reached the podium. Zapp looked at her in shock. He pointed a wobbly finger at her.

"You promised me a dance, missy."

"Now isn't the time!" She grabbed Zapp's arm and dragged him toward Samuel. Zapp made what he probably thought was a seductive growl and leaned toward her, then suddenly leaned back with a disgusted look on his face. Leela sniffed at herself. "Oh yeah."

"You smell like garbage!"

"Perhaps I've just been around you too long," Leela shot back. She pointed at Bender. "These allies of yours did that to our robot because of something he saw."

"So? I've trashed robots before now, for lots of reasons." Zapp put his hands on his hips. "Forget about that, how about I take you upstairs and give you an erotic bath..." he raised an eyebrow at Leela and tried to purr. It was actually a fairly good imitation.

Leela tapped her foot. "How about I punch you and then get on that podium and tell everyone to get off the planet as fast as possible."

"I prefer my idea," Zapp said, folding his arms and looked out across the room. Leela shook her head.

"Look, you moron, the Ruklisk are going to invade and enslave our entire species unless I warn these people to leave."

"You can't be sure of that, for all you know this robot could have fallen from a window and tried to cover it up by lying." Zapp retorted, dismissing the wreckage of bender with a wave of his hand.

"Hey, I have a huge hole where my heart would have been!"

Zapp's shoulders sagged for a moment. "Don't we all?" But then he straightened up again and put out his hands in an almost protective gesture. "Even so, I can't let you go up there spreading rumours like this."

"I warned you. Samuel, cover your eyes. This won't be pretty." Leela leaned back a little as Samuel lifted Bender's head up to cover his face.

"Oh wow, ring-side seats!"

"Shut up!" Leela tapped Zapp's chest to get his attention again. When he looked down she wound back her fist and slugged him right on the chin, knocking Zapp to the floor. He landed with a loud yell that silenced the room. She punched Zapp in the face again for good measure, then stood up, shaking her hand to relieve the tension. Leela grabbed Bender's head and jumped up on to the stage. She held the robot up. "Everyone listen to me. The Ruklisk are not our allies! This robot saw something they were doing and they blasted him apart for it!"

"Get down from there," Glab shouted, trying to grab Leela's arm. Leela elbowed the Grand Councilwoman in the face and marched over to the podium. A guard tried to tackle her but she casually flipped over him, using Bender's head as a club to beat him to the ground as she passed by. The other guards backed off a little and waited while Leela reached the podium, where she flipped Bender's head over and propped him up facing the wall.

"Someone arrest that madwoman!" Glab screamed, levering herself up from the floor.

"I'm not mad you stupid-" Leela ducked as one of the DOOP guards in front of the stage fired at her. "I'm trying to save your lives you idiots!"

"Arrest her!" There was another shot. A trio of DOOP soldiers were making their way from the far side of the room, whilst others were already surrounding the stage. The delegates were already crowding toward the exits, shouting at each other. More fights broke out on the floor. Leela held up Bender's head again, pointing him toward the wall.

"Hey stop putting me in the line of fire!"

"Bender, just play the damn video!"

"Oh. Right." Bender's eye lit up and started projecting an image on the wall. It quickly resolved into the interior of the hotel safe.

"Hey," someone shouted. "That's my stuff!"

"Skip this bit," Leela said. Bender grunted and the video skipped forward until his encounter with the aliens. The bulk of the door was in the way, so that only the concierge's arm and one of the Ruklisk was visible.

"_Please, I'll do anything..."_

The room fell silent as the video played out, apart from the occasional cough and a few mutterings that rose in volume as the Ruklisk attacked the concierge, until finally the delegates were shouting and pushing as the stampede for the exits began.

The Ruklisk drew their weapons but were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of retreating people. They fired into the air, calling to each other in their guttural language as they tried to stem the flow. One or two were pulling prepared spines from their belts and crouching to grab at passing escapees. Leela grabbed a rifle from a nearby soldier and took aim at the closest Ruklisk. Its head exploded with a satisfying bang when she fired. "Well how about that..."

Leela tucked Bender under her arm, jumped from the stage and pushed through the crowd toward Samuel. She held up her wrist computer. "Amy, if you aren't on your way here _right now _you are so going to get bitched at tomorrow," she yelled over the noise. The radio crackled.

"_Three minutes!"_ Leela nodded and lowered the radio. She picked up another rifle from the floor and threw it to Samuel.

"You ever-"

"Never in my life," Samuel said, peering down the rifle's sights. He aimed at the nearest Rukilisk and let off a shot that missed the creature by several feet before blasting a light fitting from the wall. Leela grinned and shot the Ruklisk, and then the DOOP guards seemed to have got the idea as well and were trying to lay down enough fire to cover the fleeing civilians. Around them the screaming renewed as the Ruklisk started firing indiscriminately into the crowd. A stray shot smacked into the wall beside Leela's head. She blinked.

"We'd better get somewhere a little more defensible," she said, looking around. She glanced around the room but nowhere seemed particularly safe. "Or just out of here altogether."

Samuel pushed the doors open and grabbed Samuel's arm. Then suddenly someone grabbed her arm. It was Zapp, sporting a huge black eye. He was on his knees. Leela felt a strange thrill at the sight. "Leela, I need to get out of here. Take me with you! I'll... I'll give up the dance, I'll try to be... you always get out of this sort of thing. Help me!"

Leela looked down at Zapp with barely concealed contempt. She shrugged her arm out of his grasp. "Sorry Zapp, you got us into this. You get out of it yourself."

"Wait! I didn't... how could I know?" Zapp grabbed the hem of Leela's dress and started sobbing on her feet. Leela sighed and ducked just in time to dodge another shot. She looked at Samuel.

"He has a point, you know," he said, putting a hand on Leela's shoulder. "If it makes you feel better I really don't think he's much of a threat to our relationship."

"He's a walking disaster area!" Leela slung her rifle over her shoulder and grabbed Zapp's arm. "Okay, come on, but you _run_ like the coward you are or I'll shoot you."

Zapp clambered to his knees, tears of what might have been joy running down his face. "Thank you!"

"Amy, meet us around the back of the hotel " Leela said to her wrist. She picked up Bender's head and tossed it to Samuel, then took some of Bender's parts and shoved them into Zapp's waiting arms. She brandished her rifle. "Lets roll."

Leela took up a covering position as the others escaped into the corridor, firing at any Ruklisk that even looked like it was coming near. The ballroom was almost deserted now as the majority had escaped, with just a few DOOP soldiers left battling the Ruklisk. They were losing. Already several had been turned by whatever compound the Ruklisk used on their victims, siding with the aliens against their former comrades. They moved slowly, without passion, but they were merciless and efficient, dispatching the remaining soldiers with terrifying accuracy.

A plasma bolt smacked into the wall beside Leela. She ducked and turned to find the target. It was Glab, a spine still protruding from her head, clutching a plasma pistol in her slender hands. Behind her the guard Leela had assaulted was lying across the still-twitching corpse of a Ruklisk, a knife thrust to the hilt in his chest.

The councilwoman stared at Leela with a vacant expression and tried to fire the pistol again, only to find it had been completely drained. Without even looking down she threw the pistol aside and picked up a plasma rifle. Leela took aim and was about to fire when a pair of plasma bolts cracked into the wall beside her, chewing deep holes in the plaster as they dissipated their energy into the wall. She ducked and backed away, keeping her eye on Glab, who seemed to be struggling with the weight of the rifle. Everyone else was either escaped, dead or turned now. Leela fired a few shots in the general direction of the remaining Ruklisk and then retreated, kicking the door closed behind her.

The others had already reached the far end of the corridor and were waiting by the emergency exit. Leela hugged the rifle close to her body and sprinted after them. The ballroom door crunched as something crashed into it, then exploded in a hail of splinters and gunfire. Leela screamed as something hit her shoulder and she stumbled. She rolled on to her side, her arm flailing uselessly as she tried to bring the rifle to bear on the aliens pouring down the corridor. The gun fell from her grasp and skittered up against the wall. Leela heard Samuel's yell and suddenly he was beside her, grabbing her arms and pulling her along the floor.

"Sam, no," Leela stammered, suddenly feeling very weak. She tried to free her arm from Samuel's grasp. "You have to-"

"Shut up, I'm not leaving you," Samuel yelled over the noise. Leela lifted her head and tried to focus on the advancing horde. Plasma and Ruklisk bullets crashed into the walls and floor around them.

"Idiot... the gun..." Leela kicked out with her feet, trying to lift her weight and nearly blacked out from the pain. A shadow fell across her; a Ruklisk, up close and personal. It snarled something unintelligible and drew out a wickedly long curved knife. There was a shout, and suddenly the creature's head exploded in a shower of orange gore. Leela glanced up; Samuel was still holding her, and was struggling to haul her upright. She looked to where the rifle had fallen. Zapp was kneeling, holding the rifle more professionally than Leela would have given him credit. He fired down the corridor in short bursts.

With a final thrust of her legs Leela managed to get upright. Samuel had dragged her almost all the way to the doors, with Zapp retreating just behind them, pausing now and then to fire at the aliens and their slaves, who had taken cover at the far end of the corridor.

They stumbled into the alley just as the Ship came crashing to a halt at the far end, its lights casting stark shadows over the bins and piles of garbage. Zoidberg was already half way up the steps when Leela and Samuel reached them. There was a crash from the far end of the alley; Leela looked over her shoulder and saw the clearing smoke of an explosion. The Ruklisk weren't being subtle any more.

Zapp came running past. "Coming through!" He ran up the stairs, flinging his plasma rifle to Hermes who came part way down the steps, brandishing the gun, and peered along the alleyway.

"Great ghosts of the Sargasso! You better hurry yourselves up, I'm leaving!" He let off a single shot at the Ruklisk, turned and retreated into the ship. The ship began to lift off even as Leela and Samuel were still clambering up the stairs. They flopped down onto the deck as the hatch closed. Samuel punched a switch on the comms panel by the hatch. "Amy, we're on board."

"_Right!"_

Fry was standing at the far exit, still in her dress. She squeaked in shock when she saw Leela's tattered clothing and her injuries. "Leela, what happened!"

"I think I got shot." Leela rolled on to her back and stared at the ceiling, prompting a stab of pain across her shoulder. She grunted and closed her eye. Someone lifted up her head and cradled it in their lap, started stoking her hair gently and Leela smiled. "Philip..."

She opened her eye. Samuel was looking down at her with a sad smile. He lifted his hand to her forehead. "We'd better get you seen to," he said.

* * *

Fry sat in the corner of the medical bay and watched Leela as she slept, the silent sleep of anaesthesia, breathing so slowly that it almost seemed as if she was dead. The lights had been turned down until the room was filled with little more than a twilight, reducing any contrast to virtually nothing, so that only the constant beeping of the monitors Zoidberg had attached to Leela showed she was still alive. Leela's wounds had been severe but not life-threatening, mostly surface damage, very spectacular and showy. Doctor Zoidberg had applied knowledge from a medical training program that had been installed with the medical bay and then tossed it aside as he grew into the role of actually saving someone's life. Leela might have a faint scar, a patch of slightly mottled skin but otherwise there'd be no evidence of the wound, yet if the shot had hit just an inch lower she might have lost her arm. Zoidberg could be quite competent if he put his mind to it.

There was possibly a little irony in the criticism, as it had been applied to Fry many times in her own life, often in very hurtful ways. She put her chin on her hands and stared at Leela for a long time, watching her breath, watching her peaceful face the way she'd never had the chance to do before. It was... gratifying. And yet the possibility that she might be somehow responsible for all of this meant that Fry couldn't quite settle down. So she watched, and waited.

At some point she must have dozed off, because Samuel suddenly seemed to appear by the bed. Fry felt her heart thump when she saw him leaning over Leela the way he did. She swallowed and tried to look away, but the sight kept drawing her back. It could have been her. Him. She sighed. That her confusion could still appear after so long was almost depressing.

Unfortunately, or perhaps not, Samuel had heard her. He looked up. "Ahh, welcome back. You were asleep," he said, letting go of Leela's hand and straightening up. He sat down next to Fry. "Nice to see someone care for Leela this much."

"Someone has to," Fry said, rubbing her eyes. She was _tired_, more tired than she'd realised, but that wouldn't stop her. "I've done it before. I once sat with Leela while she was in a coma for two weeks. She's saved my life so many times now, I can't even begin to pay back what I owe her."

"I'm surprised that Brannigan character isn't here."

"Oh, Amy had him locked up in the laundry room, not that he'd want to be here anyway," Fry said with a quiet chuckle. The thought that Zapp would actually care was too funny.

Samuel nodded and leaned back, wrapping his arms across his chest. He watched Leela for a while without saying anything, then: "Saved your life a lot, huh?"

"Yeah." Fry yawned and stretched, trying to counter the fatigue dragging at her eyes. "More times than I can count since I got here. She can be uptight and mean, and she even kicked me in the... well," Fry shook her head. "Lets just say she kicked me. I think I may have deserved it."

Samuel chuckled to himself and shook his head as he leaned forward. Fry looked at him and frowned. "What?"

"Oh. Nothing. It's just... this 'friendship' thing. Even an idiot could see there's more to it."

"I don't know, I can be pretty dumb sometimes," Fry said with a shrug. She looked away so that Samuel wouldn't be able to see the confusion in her eyes. Her feelings for Leela were something she hadn't been able to address even in her most private moments. Amy had been easy. Well, Amy was always easy... but the divorce and manipulation of feeling had been simple. With Leela, at first it had seemed the same. Feelings changed. Situations were different. But now, seeing her like this, Fry suddenly realised with a sickening lurch that she didn't know. The emptiness she had felt wasn't an simple lack of feeling but a void, a place where a feeling ought to be but wasn't. She found herself biting her knuckle again and quickly pressed her hand to her thigh.

"I'm right, there's more to it, isn't there?"

"I..." Fry looked at Samuel. He had wonderfully deep brown eyes, eyes she could stare into for hours if given the chance. She looked away again. "I don't know. It's-"

"Complicated?" Fry bit her lip and nodded. Samuel just shrugged. "All this complication, it's hard to see how I fit into things."

"Oh it's pretty obvious how you fit into things," Fry said, only realising how that sounded after she'd finished. She covered her mouth. "Sorry."

"I think I got what you meant," Samuel said, and smiled. He leaned back again and stretched his legs out. "She has feelings for you. You have feelings for her. Neither of you can admit it to yourselves or to each other, so you're deceiving yourselves. That isn't complicated. It's weird, considering where I am in this ménage-a-trois right now, but not complicated at all."

"The curse of my whimsical gender," Fry said sadly. Samuel frowned. He stood up and walked over to the bed, where he looked down at Leela again. Fry watched him from her seat, peering against the fog of fatigue that kept drawing down on her mind. "What I'm trying to say is, you make her happy. I suppose that makes me happy."

Samuel nodded. He took Leela's hand and stroked it. "I think I have things figured out." He turned to look at Fry. "You two spent hours in my cafe, talking about all sorts of weird crap that didn't make any sense to me. I've see what that crazy scientist you call your boss gets up to. Sometimes we hear the explosions right up at my apartment block. See the creatures he lets out in the river now and then...

"I've got a group of regulars who are fascinated with that place. After the opera they went nuts trying to find out everything they could about you people. Newspaper cuttings, rumours on the internet, it's a bit creepy actually, how far they'll go to get their information. When you two started visiting they went completely insane about it. I've made more money from them in the last six months than I've ever made in my entire life."

Fry swallowed. She wasn't tired now, not in the slightest. Adrenaline had surged into her veins as Samuel spoke. She twisted her neck to try and relieve the sudden tension. "So, so what?"

"I remember the story you told just now. The captain who was attacked by giant space bees and spent two weeks in a coma they said she'd never wake from."

"Yeah. I sat and talked to her every day."

"A man sat and talked to her every day. They span it as a love story."

"A love story? Oh I wish it had been... a..." Fry felt her heart freeze. _He knew! _She stood up and turned to leave. "I'd better-"

Samuel reached out and took hold of her arm. "Wait."

"Why?" Fry tried to pry Samuel's hand from her arm but he was a little too insistent, and she was tired. "Let go of me."

"I'm sorry." Samuel let her go, but it was obvious he didn't want her to leave. Fry waited for him to speak again. "So. You used to be Philip Fry, the man who wrote that opera and then disappeared when it was a flop. You got changed somehow. I don't know how, I don't even _care_ how, but I expect that 'Professor' of yours was involved somewhere."

Fry nodded, an almost imperceptible motion, but somehow more profound than the revelation to the crew. She sat down again. "I guess you think I'm some sort of freak now."

"We can't help being who we are," Samuel said, leaning against the bed. Leela stirred slightly at his presence, but otherwise didn't move. Samuel stroked her arm very gently. "I love this woman, and I'm pretty sure she loves me. I'm also sure she loves you too."

"You mean loved."

"When you're around a bunch of literature nerds you very quickly learn to be careful with your words," Samuel said, staring at Fry. He didn't look away. Fry felt a strange tingling under her chest, that heat she had felt before, surrounding the void, as if something was burning within her heart.

"Oh. Oh hell." Fry tried to find something to look at. She bit her lip and took a deep breath, trying to ignore the sudden insistent beating of her heart, though it felt like her chest was about to explode from it. "And I thought things were complicated before."

Samuel let a wry smile grace his lips. "Tell me about it."

They sat in silence for a moment, each thinking their own thoughts. Fry looked at Leela again, watched her stirring a little as the anaesthetic started to wear off. She was probably starting to dream now, and for a few minutes Fry wondered what she would be dreaming about. She turned her gaze back to Samuel again. "What do you want to do?"

"She's proud," Samuel said, ignoring the question. He walked to the far wall and stared at a medical diagram. "She couldn't admit her feelings about you before, there's not a chance in hell she'll be able to do it now." Samuel turned and looked at Fry again, a strange smile on his face. "And, on one level that's good for me. But... on another level, it means she'll never be completely mine."

"She never would have been anyway."

"I know." Samuel leaned on the counter. He stared at the floor and sighed. "I just don't know what to do."

"I don't think it's your decision," Fry said, standing up. She looked at Leela again with a faint smile. "You know, I think I do love her still. Enough to want her to be happy."

Fry put her hands together and looked at Samuel again. She smiled, even as every fibre of her being screamed at her to throw the man out. She ignored the voice and turned to walk out of the door.

* * *

Leela could feel herself waking up. That absolute darkness always scared her a little, always brought back tenuous images of being trapped in deep tunnels with no escape – held in long, loving arms, but trapped all the same. Probably some sort of genetic memory. She tried to focus on her last conscious moment, which had involved a great deal of pain. Leela peeled open her eye and stared at the ceiling of the medical bay. More vague memories flitted through her mind, half-remembered dreams and snatches of conversation. Sedation sucked. She took a deep breath, trying to clear her head. Her shoulder itched and felt hot and tingly, but apart from that everything seemed normal.

Someone took her hand. A shadowy figure leaned over. Leela blinked back cobwebs and tried to focus. "Samuel?"

"Hi," Samuel said. Leela levered herself upright and pulled him into a hug.

* * *

Fry sat in the galley, nursing a cup of coffee with a little extra oomph from Bender's quarters. Sleep hadn't come, despite her exhaustion. She stared at the wall, sipping her coffee now and then, her face blank.

"So hey," Bender said from his pile in the corner of the room. "You look a little down over there sweetcakes."

"Don't call me that," Fry said automatically. She shook her head and blinked as she realised who was speaking. "I mean, yeah. Sorry."

"All those feminine emotions and things huh?"

"That sort of thing." Fry put her coffee down and reached for the malt liquor she'd 'liberated' for her coffee. She'd barely touched spirits since the change. They got her drunk too fast.

"Hey, go easy on that stuff," Bender said, concern tingeing his voice. Fry tried not to sneer at him too much before downing a another slug of the drink. "I'm serious, Fry, you fembags aren't designed for that sort of thing."

"So it's not because I'm stealing your precious fuel then?"

"Aw, hell no, right now my power draw is almost zero without all those servos and things to keep moving. I could last for another week at least. I'm telling you because it's the truth."

Fry put the bottle down and peered at it, then at Bender. "I don't believe you."

"Fine. Be that way." Bender rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. After a moment he looked down at the parts he was laying on. "Uh... Could you fold my arms for me so I can be in a bad mood?"

"Can't be bothered," Fry said. That liquor was even stronger than she'd thought. She poured a measure in to her cup, stared at it, drank it and then peered at Bender's heads. Perhaps he was right. It didn't help that she was so immensely tired. "What do you care anyway, tin man? Hah. Tin man. What a raff... laugh... to hell with you!"

"I hate to say I told you so. No, actually I love it." Fry lurched out of her chair and stumbled across the floor to Bender's pile. She stared down at him, cheeks flushed and wobbling under the unaccustomed volume of alcohol. Bender would have shivered if he had a body. And if he could feel cold. Instead all he could do was look up as Fry leaned over and lifted him up to her face level. "Hi."

Fry wobbled a little but seemed to be recovering from the initial liquor shock. She peered at Bender. "What would you care about me?"

"Believe it or not, Fry, I'm your friend. I think being blown to pieces sort of brought home to me that you have to hold on to the friends you've got otherwise you end up in a heap on the floor."

"Didn't help _you _much then," Fry said. She giggled and prodded Bender's parts with her toe. Bender looked to one side and grunted.

"I'm still working on the metaphor."

"It's not like you have anything else to do down there," Fry replied, but she was smiling now. She held Bender up above her head and looked up at him. "Am I really your friend?"

"If I say yes will you put me down? I'm getting vertigo."

Fry giggled again and tucked Bender under her arm. "You're cute when you're scared," she said as she meandered toward the crew cabins.

"Hey I'm not scared! Or cute!"

"Hush," Fry said as she opened her cabin door. Amy was still on the flight deck, so the cabin was empty as Fry sauntered in. She propped Bender up on the dresser and sat down on the bed.

"Nice pad," Bender said as he looked around the room. His gaze settled on Fry again. She still had the whisky bottle gripped in her hand, though she didn't seem to notice it any more. "You're really hitting that stuff hard, Fry."

"Yep! I'm drowning my sorrels..."

"Sorrows."

"Whatever!" Fry stared at the bottle in her hand and frowned at it. She put it on a bedside table. "I'm very drunk aren't I."

Bender rolled his eyes. "Oh, you noticed? And I thought you were dumb before!" He laughed at his little joke and at the same time watched Fry to see how she'd react. She didn't. There wasn't any anger or annoyance, or even an 'I don't care'. She just didn't notice him. "Oh boy. Fry..."

Fry staggered to her feet and wobbled at Bender. It seemed about all she could do. "What do you care about me? You said I wasn't your friend, now you're pretending so you can get me into bed or something."

"Jeeze! Fry, that's disgusting!"

"Then stop looking at my ass!"

"I'm not looking at your- Oh for god's sake Fry!" Bender snapped his eyeshield shut before Fry could properly heave out of her clothes. He listened to the crazed woman as she stumped about the cabin. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"You've seen me naked before," Fry said. Her voice was slurred now.

"I didn't like it much then either," he replied. Bender couldn't hear any sign she was drinking more. He tried to adjust his internal sensors to check if Fry had put something on yet. No such luck. "Fry, don't make me do that 'reaching out' thing. I hate that. Just tell me what's wrong so you can fix it and put me back with the rest of me."

"I left my nice pants at the hotel," Fry said with a sad voice. She picked up Bender and hugged him, and Bender was suddenly very glad he didn't have any tactile sensors active in his head. His inertial guidance system told him he was moving back toward the bed, which was confirmed when the bed creaked as Fry sat down. It was more of a bunk, really, set into the wall. Amy's bunk was on top. It sure beat the hammock Bender was still using.

"Sure you haven't got another set somewhere? I know you skinnies always seem to be wearing the same stuff but you've got an entire wardrobe full of clothes over there. It can't all be Amy's."

Fry put Bender down on the bunk and walked off in the direction of the closet. Bender let his sensors creep out again; it didn't count as looking if he wasn't using his eyes. Fry had mercifully put on some underwear and was in the process of pulling on one of the many pairs of jeans she always wore. At least, Bender assumed it was one of many. He didn't have to worry about hygiene as such, but the thought of all that organic matter being layered into a small piece of cloth made him generate sensations that could be a fairly close approximation of nausea. He waited for Fry to find a blouse before opening his eyeshield again.

Fry pulled a small bottle of Flushers Detox Pills from under the bed. She popped two and grimaced. "Ugh. I hate these things..."

"So. What's the matter with you," Bender said, reciting the phrase verbatim from the book he'd memorised. Fry picked him up again and rested him on her lap. The detox was already kicking in. Her skin was flushed and damp. She looked him in the eyes and tried to smile.

"It's Leela. She loves me."

"Great, more emotions."

"I love her too," Fry continued, looking away. Bender's eyes widened in surprise. Calculon would have been proud, he thought, then ran a quick check on his memory retrieval subsystem to make sure it wasn't malfunctioning.

"You said you weren't a-"

"I know! It's all so confusing. I mean..." Fry stood up and started pacing back and forth, never taking her eyes off Bender. She lifted him up. "I love her, but at the same time I don't. It's weird."

"What you mean is, you're not sexually attracted to her," Bender said. He paused for a few milliseconds as he tried to figure out where the thought had come from. All those books seemed to be affecting his thought routines.

"Back then that's all love was for me," Fry said quietly, still pacing. She turned and walked past the table to look out into space. The stars moved imperceptibly, nothing like the way they'd scooted past in Star Trek – in some ways the routine of space travel had always been a bit of a disappointment. She looked down at Bender again. "I thought I was a pretty enlightened man. I thought I was pursuing her because of some sort of pure love, but all I really wanted to do was screw her brains out. Now I don't want to do that, but I still love her in some way that seems like the purity I was after before. Only it isn't. So much for enlightenment."

Bender sighed. This was the bit he always hated about women, especially human women. They talked about things instead of just getting themselves down to a repair shop for a quick fix. "Why not just go and tell her that instead of moping about it?"

"You'd think it would be easy," Fry said. She put Bender down on the table and sat down next to him. Bender dearly wished he could escape back to his comfortable pile in the galley. At least then he might have a chance of pulling himself together again.

"It's easy. You just walk into her cabin, get down on your knees and say 'Leela, I am hot for you'. Works every time."

Fry gave Bender a pitying look. She took a deep breath and stared out of the window again, a wistful look in her eyes. Bender rattled his mouth slot and tried to think of something else to say that wouldn't seem insulting. That in itself was an odd sensation. The idea that he should care. "Stupid books..."

"What?"

"Oh. Nothing." Bender looked down at the table. When he looked up again Fry was leaning over by her bunk, picking up the whisky bottle again. She stared at it, but didn't drink anything. Bender rolled his eyes and looked away, trying to find something else- Wait... "Fry, what's that in your back pocket?"

"What?" Fry turned around and tried to look at her own rear. She twisted around twice before she realised what she was doing. Fry put the bottle down and reached into her pocket, where she found a folded piece of paper hanging out at a funny angle. She pulled the paper out and unfolded it. "Oh, it's that note the Professor told me to look after," she said, staring at the paper. She scratched her head. "'The matrix field has reset' is all it says. Doesn't make much sense..."

"Probably wasn't meant for you anyway," Bender said. He looked around the room, or at least what he could see of it from his vantage point. "Look, can I go back to my pile now? All this talking is great but Leela's new 'boyfriend' said he was going to fix me up later."

"Sam." Fry sat down at the table again. She flattened out the note with her hands, stretching the creases out of it as best she could, and stared at the words. "Resetting itself? What does that mean?"

"Perhaps his experiment-" Bender almost bounced off the table as Fry suddenly leapt to her feet. She ran for the door, then skidded to a halt and returned to grab Bender. "What's going on?"

"No time to explain," Fry said, tucking Bender under her arm as she ran.

"Leela," Fry shouted as she ran into the medical bay. The bed was empty. Zoidberg shuffled over from the far corner, where a crude bed was half way through being assembled, and looked at Fry. "Where's Leela?"

"Discharged herself she did. I told her she needed to rest but nobody listens to Zoidberg." The Decapodian sighed and clacked his claws together, a sad staccato that echoed around the room. "Some day people will listen to Zoidberg."

"I'm sure she appreciated it, doc," Fry said, edging back to the door. She turned and ran toward Leela's cabin. In the galley she paused and propped Bender back on the pile of his parts. "I'll come back and get you in a moment," she said as she left.

"Great! Bring booze!"

Leela's door only slid open a fraction and her single great eye peered out of the twilight. "Oh. Hi Leela."

"Phi, I'm sort of in the middle of something here," Leela said with just a hint of anger in her voice. She moved herself across the gap – she was wearing a sheet. Fry swallowed.

"Right, well, this is kind of naked. I mean important. I need you to come up to the bridge, like, right now. I can't explain. I need to call the Professor and I need everyone there when I do."

"Have you been drinking? Fry-"

"I took a detox, Leela, I swear I'm sober. I found this note in my pants." Fry threaded the now-wrinkled paper through to Leela's waiting hand. She unfolded the note and scanned over it.

"That doesn't explain _anything_, Phi," Leela said as she passed the note back. She glanced over her shoulder into the darkness of the room. "Look, whatever this is..."

"Please. Leela, if you've ever trusted me before, trust me now. I _need_ you there."

Leela narrowed her eye a little. She stepped back. "All right, but I'm warning you, if this turns out to be a waste of time..."

"I know, I know, I swear this will have a point."

"Wait there." The door closed again. Fry leaned against the opposite bulkhead and waited. She even whistled to herself, but couldn't keep the mood for it for long. Up ahead she could hear Amy shouting something on the bridge but couldn't quite make out what it was. She straightened up and looked down the corridor.

"All right," Leela said as she walked out of her cabin. Samuel crept out right after her. He jumped, surprised when he saw Fry.

"Aw, Leela, you said-"

"No I didn't! It doesn't matter anyway, everyone's figured it out by now," Leela said, grabbing Samuels' hand. She looked at Fry, her eye narrowing warily. "Lets go."

* * *

Amy glared across the bridge at Zapp, one hand resting on the control panel, the other held out as if she could shield herself from Zapp's presence. "I don't care how you got out of the laundry room, you are not taking over this ship."

"Oh but I must," Zapp said with an ingratiating smile. He took a step toward Amy. "There are greater things at stake than simply getting your crew home. I have to get to my ship."

"You don't _have _a ship!" Amy put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at Zapp. "I heard you promoted to Ambassador General. That's not a military rank."

"I always have a ship!"

"Actually, sir..." Kif held up his hand, though he stayed well out of Zapp's grabbing range. "Strictly speaking Amy is correct. Your rank precludes you from holding any military position."

"All the more reason why I need _this_ ship!"

"No." Amy took a step forward, hands raised protectively against the overbearing General's bulk.

Zapp clenched his hands and narrowed his eyes at Amy. The young intern qualied slightly under the gaze but didn't retreat. "Now listen to me you little-"

"My my," Leela said as she entered the bridge, cutting off Zapp's threat before it could form.. "Seems like every time you're on my ship you try and steal it from me."

Zapp stepped back in surprise as Fry and Samuel sauntered behind Leela, holding various parts of Bender. He seemed to struggle for words. "Leela! You're alive?"

Leela took her seat behind the controls. "Like you'd care. Amy, scanners. Phi, you get on the radio."

Zapp took a step toward Leela, his brow creased. He held out his hands to her. "Leela..."

"Not now Zapp," Leela replied. She leaned over her controls and peered at them. "Amy, how many times have I told you about putting your feet on the dashboard?"

"Leela, listen to me." Zapp grabbed her arm. Without even thinking Leela turned and punched the inside of his elbow. Zapp howled in pain as his arm folded and he pitched toward the deck, where he landed face-first with a nasty crunch.

Leela rolled Zapp on to his back with her foot and glared down at him. Zapp's nose was bloodied from the impact. He looked up at her with a terrified expression. "Don't you _ever _touch me again."

Zapp let off a fractional nod. He rolled over and, nursing his injured arm, pushed on to his knees and then stumbled toward the observation couch. Leela finished re-setting the controls to her own preference and turned to look at Fry. "Okay Philippa, time to make that call."

* * *

"Well yes, it's very simple really," Professor Farnsworth said once they had finally managed to reach him. He was wearing his nightcap and apparently little else, though fortunately the lights in his bedroom were too dim to really be sure. "The truth of the matter is, I had worked out how to transfer elements of the universal matrix quite a while ago, but certain anomalies kept turning up in the results."

"The fireballs," Fry said, leaning forward. Farnsworth nodded.

"That's certainly the prettiest part of it, yes, but there was more."

Fry unfolded the paper she was holding and held it up to the screen. "You left a note."

"Yes. Yes, I did. Many times, apparently. Many times." Farnsworth lifted up a similar piece of paper. The same note was written on it. "I found out that the universal matrix transfer creates a closed time continuum, sort of a miniature universe that has no outer boundary and sticks over the top of our own universe, something like a fridge magnet."

Bender, now sitting on Fry's lap, piped up. "That why I've been wanting to sing the Dixie Chicks' entire back catalogue all this time?"

"No, you stupid robot, it's a metaphor."

"Wow, jeeze, I was only trying to lighten the mood..." Fry stroked Bender's scalp-plate, though she knew it wouldn't have any effect on the robot. She looked around the bridge, took in everyone's faces as she worked up the courage to ask her next questions.

"What does it mean?"

"Oh well, it's simple really. The small-scale experiments I've run created alternative reality matrices that were about thirty feet across. Resetting them produced a condition where, within the matrix area, I had no longer performed the experiment, which meant that my notes to myself kept disappearing. It was only blind luck that my last one fell on the floor and outside the range of the matrix transfer effect." Farnsworth peered at the paper he was holding as if he'd never seen it before. He let go of it and then watched it drop to the floor with a strange, thoughtful expression. "The area affected seems to be some factor of the number of bosons, or perhaps the initial volume, altered by the transfer. The accident that created our current reality matrix had an effect about twenty thousand light-years across, most of which was caused by your change, Fry."

Fry swallowed and looked down at the floor. It almost felt as if she was responsible somehow. She looked up again, wanting to ask more, but her mouth was dry. Leela turned to look at Fry. She asked the question Fry didn't want to. "What will happen when you change Fry back?"

"The same volume of space will be reset, give or take a few dozen light-years. It will return to a state very similar to the one it would have held if the matrix transfer hadn't happened."

Leela looked at Samuel. "You mean we'll forget everything?"

"Oh my no," Farnsworth said with a broad smile. Leela relaxed a little. "You won't forget it because there won't be anything to forget. You'll never have experienced it in the first place."

The bridge was silent as everyone absorbed the full impact of the Professor's revelation. Fry looked at Leela again. She was holding Samuel's hand. Fry felt something snag in her heart at the sight. She couldn't take that away from Leela. Not now. "We can't do it," she said. Amy gasped.

"Fry... Phi, you can't be serious."

"Yeah Fry," Bender said in a low voice. "Last week you said I didn't have to make an effort because you'd be changed back to your old self."

Leela turned an accusing eye on Fry. Fry swallowed and looked around the bridge again.

"I... I can't do it. Not if it means losing everything I've experienced over the last few months. Leela, I made real friends in you and Amy. I've learned things. Now I'll have to give it up and be the man you barely tolerate? I can't do that. I can't lose all of this."

There was a shuffling noise from the front of the bridge as Zapp pushed himself out of the couch. He walked toward them, still nursing his injured arm and sporting a trickle of blood on his uniform. "There's more to it than just you," Zapp said, frowning at Fry. He seemed unsure of what Fry meant, but for obvious reasons that had never stopped him before. "There's the problem of my reputation. And the Ruklisk."

"Oh lord, the flare..." Leela looked at the Professor, who seemed to have retreated out of range of the screen. "Professor, would this reset prevent those fireballs?"

"Of course it would. It would reset _everything_."

"So the flare that hit the Nimbus..."

Farnsworth re-appeared on the screen, sporting his usual coat, though he was still wearing the nightcap. "Do you only have one ear to match that eye or something? None of it would have happened!"

Zapp's grin was triumphant. He punched a fist into his hand "This is perfect! I would retain my ship and the aliens wouldn't be embarrassing me with their behaviour."

"Oh of course, because the great Zapp Brannigan being embarrassed is just too much for the human race to bear," Leela said. She gave Zapp a disgusted look and shook her head. But then she turned to look at Fry, and her face softened. "Still, the idiot's right. If we do this, we won't be facing an alien invasion."

"We don't know that for sure," Fry said, holding Bender's head defensively. Bender rolled his eyes.

"Hey, keep me out of this," he said. Fry tilted him a little to one side and glared at the robot.

Leela stood up and walked toward Fry. She held out her hands. "Come on Phi, this isn't helping. Give me Bender's head and come sit down. We'll talk about this, okay?"

Fry swallowed and lowered Bender's head a little. She looked at Leela, and then slowly handed Bender over.

"That's right," Leela said, putting Bender to one side. She held out her hand again. Fry took it, flinching with nerves when Leela started to draw her forward again. She lead Fry to the scanners console and sat her down.

"There's another signal coming in," Amy said. She walked over to the Communications console. Wow, it's on every channel." Amy sat down and activated the communication screen. An image of the Grand Councilwoman Glab appeared, flanked by two Ruklisk holding oversized plasma rifles. Her face had a familiar, emotionless look as she spoke in a near-monotone.

"-der of the Democratic Order of Planets, all commercial interstellar fleet activity is hereby suspended until further notice, all interplanetary fleet activity is likewise suspended. Martial law is being declared on the primary DOOP homeworlds. This message will repeat for the next five hours. This is Grand Councilwoman Glab, President of the Democratic Order of Planets. In the last few hours there have been several reports of violent exchanges on the Ruklisk Colony of Eridani. I am here to clarify up those rumours.

"Several hours ago, a group of terrorists invaded the final signing ceremony of our peace accords with the Ruklisk and attempted to assassinate the DOOP high council. Many civilians and innocent bystanders were injured or killed by their attempt.

"Please ignore the rumours that have sprung up regarding these events. The Ruklisk and the Democratic Order of Planets are cooperating to bring the perpetrators of this act of terrorism to justice. We are issuing a formal arrest warrant for the following people. Turanga Leela, Earthican, former Lieutenant Kif Kroker, Amphibiosan, former Ambassador General Zapp Branningan, Earthican, Samuel Maxine, Earthican, Amy Wong, Martian. These criminals must be apprehended immediately.

"The Ruklisk fleet will move into DOOP space in order to facilitate the search for the terrorists. By order of the Democratic Order of Planets, all commercial interstellar fleet activity is hereby suspended until further notice, all interplan-"

Leela cut the power to the main viewer and slumped back in her chair. "Well poop."

"Oh we're boned," Bender said, then laughed. "And by 'we' I mean 'you', since I wasn't on that list. Nice knowing you guys. Anyone got a cigar?"

"Perhaps you didn't notice that we're all on the same ship together," Leela said, turning to glare at Bender. The robot looked away. "If they come after us right now, you're as dead as we are."

"Oh. Yeah, I forgot about that." Bender glanced out at the stars. "Don't suppose you could drop me off somewhere? I hear Alpha Centuri is quite nice this time of year."

Leela ignored the plea, concentrating on her controls. She turned to look at Fry again. "Look, the choice is simple. You can stay the way you are and end up like that..." Leela waved her arm at the blank screen. "Or you can go through with this and save the entire galaxy. You won't be the only one giving something up, Phi," Leela said as she took Samuel's hand again. Samuel smiled uncertainly. "This last year has been a wonderful time for us, but we can't think about ourselves when the fate of half the galaxy is at stake. If you really want to call yourself my friend you should think about that."

"But-"

"No buts. Besides, whatever happens, we need to get to earth before we can even think about attempting to fix this and that won't be easy with the DOOP chasing us." Leela turned to look at Kif. He cowered, a reflex learned from countless years with Zapp, then slowly brought himself upright again and smoothed down his clothing and gave Leela his full attention. "Is there any way we can prove that message was faked?"

"If we had any evidence, we could get close to one of our ships and try to broadcast it to them before they blow us up," Kif replied, looking around the bridge. He clenched his hands together. "I don't really see what we can use, though."

"We do have evidence," Leela said, looking at Bender, now back on Fry's knee again. Bender sighed sadly.

"I guess Alpha Centuri's out then, huh?"

"Yep." Leela picked up Bender. She looked at Fry and tried to give her a re-assuring smile. Fry just stared at her knees, her face blank and unmoving, and probably with good reason, Leela realised. It was almost too much for her to bear. Leela looked away before she had to chance to say something stupid.

There was a loud stomping as someone clambered up the steps on to the Bridge. Hermes paused at the top, panting. He looked at the assembled crew. "Me and wife were just watching the news when I saw a message saying all of you has theselves set up as _criminals,_" he gasped, leaning over to catch his breath. "What in the name of the great Marley is goin _on _up here?"


	7. The Silver Id

**Chapter Seven – The Silver Id**

The _Nimbus_ rested in the deeps at the head of a small flotilla of ships, drifting at less than a quarter of the speed of light along a course that would take it toward Earth in about eleven centuries if they didn't do anything. Of course, they would eventually, her new captain mused. This was just a routine check stop on their assigned patrol route.

Captain Arnk felt a certain amount of pride in his role, occupying the seat so recently vacated by the buffoon Brannigan. The _Nimbus_ had needed so much care and attention. Her crew had one of the highest turnovers in the fleet, and one of the highest attrition rates amongst the noncoms Arnk had ever seen on a peace-time battlecruiser. He had fixed that. He had fixed a lot of things. _Nimbus_ had gone from being the most accident-prone flagship in history to a ship that actually deserved the name.

He paced the spacious bridge of the _Nimbus_, admiring the sheer volume they had given to the command deck. Every other class of ship cramped their senior officers into a tiny compartment with barely enough room to move in the case of some ships. The _Frankfurt_, his last command, hadn't even had a chair for the captain. For most officers that would be a hardship. For him, it had been easy. All he had to do was inflate his leg reservoirs until they were rock solid and then forget about them for the next fourteen hours.

He settled into the command chair, which still bore the marks of Brannigan's frankly huge buttocks, and wondered when the fleet would get around to standardising the fleet uniform. Trousers were the only thing he missed from his last command... but yes, this certainly was the crowning moment of his career. Even the last proclamation of the Grand Council couldn't dampen his spirits and, besides, it had the added bonus of allowing the crew a chance to hunt down their oldest enemy and most implacable foe: Brannigan himself.

Though, frankly, he couldn't quite fathom that Lieutenant Kroker would be involved. Arnk knew Kroker's family. He was a good, professional officer who simply got lumbered with a bad commander. Arnk wasn't sure how Kroker fit, but he kept his doubts private from the crew. It wouldn't be seemly for a senior officer to question direct orders.

The communications officer turned to Arnk. "Incoming message, sir."

"Lets have it," Arnk said, leaning back. Hopefully it'd be an order rescinding the Ruklisk presence. He didn't like having even one of their cruisers in amongst his fleet. "Well?"

"Sorry sir, it's..." the communications officer tapped a few controls. "Odd. It's a realspace transmission. Low bandwidth, text only, heavily encrypted as well. I'll have to reel back the encryption key passbook until I get a match. Could take a few minutes."

"Source?"

"One eleven oh ninety. The header dates it about a week ago."

"Thank you comms," Arnk said before turning to his executive officer. "Project that location and find out if we had any ships in that area."

"Right away sir."

Arnk sat back in his chair again and smiled as his XO busied himself on the far side of the bridge. A happy crew was an effective crew.

It was rare for his species to smile. In fact it wasn't even a natural expression for them but, like many Amphibiosans, he'd picked up the habit from being around the Boneys for so long, since they expected to see emotions like that on the face so often. A habit picked up was hard to put down again but he didn't mind; it let the crew know how he felt. Quite soon his XO returned holding a slim message screen.

"What have you got," Arnk said, taking the screen when it was offered.

"Light corvette _Arcturus _reported a possible contact with a Wanderer in that area but never confirmed a claim. They've not been heard from since and were marked as lost on tour."

Arnk nodded. 'Lost on tour' was a euphemism for a deserting crew. It had become quite common in the last few years as various ships had stumbled across paradise worlds or El Dorado rocks on the fringes of various solar systems. The choice between handing over the claim to a DOOP hierarchy increasingly dominated by people like Brannigan or simply taking the claim and disappearing on to the black market with it was not a tough one for some crews. It tended to be smaller ships that went L.O.T. most often, though there was the one notable case of that entire battle fleet disappearing to Nymphine Six. Arnk perused the screen for a moment, taking in the details. "All right, mark it as a possible emergency contact and run up a few projections for a rescue mission. We can send the _Dillinger_ if anything firms up."

"Yes sir," the XO said, taking back the screen.

"Okay." Arnk stood up and paced around the bridge again, pausing now and then to examine a console readout. Everything seemed to be running smoothly. If only that damned Ruklisk ship wasn't tailing him everywhere. One to shoot up to the Ruperts, perhaps. He paused back at his command chair and turned to the XO. "I think that's enough time here. Prep us for our next-"

"Blackbreak, blackbreak, incoming contact sir," the scanners officer said. She started tracking down the contact before Arnk could even order her to. Professional to a tee. "Small craft incoming, k-five kliks. Some sort of customised courier transport, computer has designated uniform charlie nine seven."

"Course?"

"Seems like a long parabola toward Terra," the officer said as she activated another set of detailed scanners. "Civilian. Single engine. Signature matches the fugitive ship."

"Excellent, well done." Arnk returned to his chair, another smile on his face. It was strange how satisfying the expression could be. He turned to look at the main screen where the projected target appeared against a two-dimensional tactical view as a red dot a few thousand kilometres off the starboard bow. The green splatter of his fleet was marred by the presence of a blue 'neutral friendly' icon. Arnk stared at the icon for a moment. "Inform the fleet to stand by. Oh, and XO, have our Ruklisk friend go investigate that wanderer possible. I don't want them interfering."

"Aye sir," the XO said, before repeating the order to the communications officer. The _Nimbus_ got under way, moving toward the small craft racing across the deeps. Arnk stared at the screen.

"Why haven't they jumped?"

"Sir?"

"They're bound to have seen us by now, why haven't they jumped away?"

"Perhaps their engines are damaged," the XO said with a shrug. He looked away. "Between you and me, sir, if Zapp is on board that thing it's highly likely that he's dumped their fuel by accident or something equally stupid."

"Hmm. I'll keep that in mind," Arnk said, settling into his command chair again. He looked around the bridge. "How's our Ruklisk friend taking his new assignment?"

The scanners officer adjusted her screens to check. "They're moving off sir, but slowly."

"Indeed? Comms?"

"Static sir. They complained when I passed on the order, said it wasn't worth the trouble."

Arnk rubbed his mouth absently. It was another habit he'd picked up from his last XO, Lieutenant Milezir, a rather proud woman with too many arms. They'd lost touch after his promotion. Hadn't she transferred to a corvette recently? "Well never mind. Call the ship, have them heave to. And prep the forward canons for a shot across their bow."

"Aye sir."

* * *

Amy looked up from her console. "They've seen us," she said.

Leela's smile was grim. She re-settled herself in her seat and looked at Fry, who was back at the communications console with Bender's head. "Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Fry said sadly.

"Everyone not needed here had better get back to their cabins and strap in," Leela said as she prepped the main engine. "This might get very bumpy very fast."

"Got a signal," Fry said. She propped Bender's head up on the console. Leela nodded to receive the message.

"_Unidentified craft, this is the DOOP starship _Nimbus_. You are in violation of the commercial space flight ban. Heave to and prepare to be taken under escort."_

"The Nimbus? Good job Zapp is locked up in the laundry again," Leela said absently as she reduced power. The gargantuan starship moved alongside without firing, which was a refreshing change. "Well, lets give this a shot... Nimbus, this is the private courier ship Planet Express, we will comply with your request. Please prepare to receive a video transmission."

"Bender, that's your cue," Fry said quietly. She plugged a lead into Bender's head and flicked the transmit switch.

* * *

"What the hell is this?" Arnk got out of his chair as the video of Bender's memories began to play on his screen. The bridge fell silent as the Ruklisk treachery played out. Arnk slipped back into his chair, his eyes growing wider with each moment that passed until the screen went blank again. "Was that what I think it was?"

"It could be fake, sir," the XO said. He didn't look convinced.

"Yes, and it could be the real thing." Arnk rubbed his face again, pondering the final frozen image on the screen. He knew they were real. He'd seen documentaries of what the Ruklisk had done to the colonies they'd overrun, but there was still every chance... he wouldn't be able to judge until they could examine the video. "We can't take their word for it. Bring their ship into the docking bay and prepare a boarding party."

"Aye sir."

Arnk nodded and turned to his communications officer. "Anything from the Ruklisk?"

"No sir."

"Still on course," the scanners officer added, looking up from her console. "They've slowed down a mite, though. Almost like they don't want to get up to jump speed."

Arnk blinked and rubbed his eyes. None of it made sense. "What about that message?"

The communications officer hesitated and then started manipulating his terminal again. "I'm sorry, sir, I left it in the rush. It seems to have just completed."

"Read it back."

"Aye." The communications officer brought the text up on his screen. "It says... 'Claim staked on wanderer, under attack, three... three Ruklisk cruisers. Activating self destruct.' That's all the computers have managed to decode so far, sir."

Arnk stood up and pointed at his XO. "Erl arshe argoya moy eyul- dammit, signal _Argo _and _Ulysses, _get that damned alien ship out of my fleet! NOW!"

"Aye sir," the XO said. Arnk closed his eyes, glad that the officer hadn't reacted to him going 'native'. The XO turned to relay the order but was interrupted by scanners.

"Sir, the Ruklisk just jumped. They're... wait, another contact, bearing seven seven oh two thirteen. They're back again sir, on an intercept course for the transport."

"Target them. Relay to the transport, message received and understood, proceed with extreme haste." Arnk tugged at his uniform. "Get that ship out of my sky, commander."

* * *

Everyone ducked when the first shots rattled past the ship. Everyone, that is, apart from Leela. She simply slammed the engines to full power and began to dive – relative to the _Nimbus_ at least – away from the battle. She barely acknowledged the message that Fry passed on from the _Nimbus_, or the screamed warnings from Amy about incoming missiles. She was flying again. In her element. At the ship's top speed they were still eight hours from Earth but that wouldn't matter unless she could put a distance between the ship and the Ruklisk.

A flurry of missiles shot past on the starboard and exploded harmlessly in the vacuum. Leela didn't even notice once they were off her tail.

Suddenly they were in the clear. The Ruklisk ship fell behind under the constant barrage from the _Nimbus_ and her fleet. Leela accelerated and the ship automatically prepared itself to jump. She hated this part. The momentary disconnect as they 'passed' the light barrier without actually breaking it, the instant of nausea that the others never believed she felt, and then the stars were slowly passing by rather than just decorating a distant celestial sphere.

"Are they following us?"

"No." Amy extended her scans out to maximum range and looked around for any pursuit. "The Nimbus is starting to move in our direction but I can't see any other ships."

Leela loosened her grip on the wheel as the ship settled to its top speed and squeezed her eye shut until the nausea had passed. She activated the autopilot, turned out of her seat and walked over to Fry. "Right. We two are going to have a little talk."

Fry followed Leela out of the bridge, toward Leela's cabin. She paused outside the door. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Come on in and I'll tell you," Leela said. She leaned on her desk. Fry reluctantly entered the cabin and stood near the door as it closed, watching Leela, wide eyed with something that might have been fear. Leela closed her eye and bowed her head.

"You can't make me do it," Fry said, taking a step forward. Leela looked up at her again, apparently shocked at Fry's voice. She shook her head.

"You're right, I can't. You have to choose to do it."

"You're asking me to give up everything," Fry said quietly. She shuffled across the room and sat down on Leela's bed. "You don't realise what all of this means to me."

"I know what it means to _me_."

Fry closed her eyes, let her mind wander back over the last few months. She remembered the bitter fear she'd felt when she found out what had happened, then the joy when there was a chance of getting her own life back, but in the time since then she'd felt less sure about it. Some where along the way she'd started to enjoy herself. Life had a cruel way of forcing decisions. "Leela, you once told me that I should think with my heart."

"I wasn't talking about saving the whole of civilisation back then," Leela replied. She pushed up from the desk and started to pace about her cabin, clenching and unclenching her fists. Fry had never seen her this agitated before, no matter how things had been screwed up. "I'm not just asking you to give up something, I'm going to lose a lot too. I'll lose Sam, just when I was starting to think I..." Leela paused and turned to look at Fry. Her eye was getting damp. "Damn it all Fry, you know what this man means to me now. If I can give that up... can't you stop being selfish for long enough t-"

"Selfish? You think I'm doing this just for _me?_"

"Why else would you?"

Fry stood up and advanced toward Leela. She grabbed her by the shoulders. "Don't you see, it's because I want you to be happy! You say you love him? How can you force _me_ to take that choice away from you?"

"Fry-"

"Don't call me that," Fry muttered. Leela threw up her arms in disgust and turned away from Fry. "Leela, come on, this isn't just about me any more."

"Oh, it certainly is," Leela said, making her disgust plain. She almost sneered at she spoke. "You don't want to make any choices in your life. Well, you're in luck, because when the time comes I will gladly kick you into that explosion or whatever it is myself!"

"But-"

Leela rounded on Fry, her fist almost raised in anger. Her arm shivered under the tension, and then turned into a finger pointing straight at Fry's face. "No! Don't try to weasel out of this. You think you're my friend? Would a friend make this sort of choice?"

Fry closed her eyes again and rubbed her temples. She was getting a headache. This really wasn't going how she'd hoped. "Leela..."

"Whatever excuse it is this time, I don't want to hear it. You-"

"I still love you," Fry said, looking up. Leela's mouth dropped open. She turned away. "I thought I didn't. I thought maybe I was just confused or... or something. I tried to pretend it wasn't there, but _I still love you_."

They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, and Fry almost wondered if she'd managed to change Leela's mind. But then Leela spoke, and her voice was terribly calm. "You mean, all this time, when you said you were somehow different, you've been lying to me?"

"No! I mean, I've been lying to myself." Fry held up her hands and looked at them as if seeing them for the first time. She'd never got around to trying the Holophoner again. Now she never would. "I realise now, I couldn't stop loving you no matter what happened. Sure, it's not the same as it was before, but it's still there."

Leela's jaw worked slowly as she mouthed out Fry's last words. She looked over her shoulder at him, her eye narrow and fierce. "I don't see how this is relevant."

"But don't you see? If I love you then how can I take away the one thing that would make your life complete? I can't take Sam away from you any more than I could take away my own legs."

Leela's face softened a little, and she shifted her weight a little in that way she had when she was starting to listen. Fry saw that she might be convincing her and pressed on. "Sam spoke to me while you were in the medbay. He said he'd figured it out. He also said you felt the same."

Fry realised it was a mistake the moment the words formed on her tongue. Leela's mouth turned down and her eye narrowed again. She clenched her jaw and walked over to the door before turning back to look at Fry. "I knew it. You don't care about Sam, or anyone else, you just care about getting close enough to me to fulfil some pathetic fantasy. I should have known better than to trust you."

"Leela..."

"No, get out! Just get out of here," Leela shouted. Her fist smacked against the door control, which breeped loudly before actiivating the door. She looked away and closed her eye again, squeezing out a tear that caught on her lashes. "Don't ever say that to me again. Don't even think it around me. Just go."

Fry's shoulders slumped. She lowered her head and slowly walked out of the room with her hands in her pockets. Leela waited for the door to close, then leaned her back against it and sank down to the floor, limbs shivering as she bit down on her emotions. She slammed her balled hand against the wall, then put her head back and just screamed. There were no words, no message, just bitter anger that stretched out until the scream faded to heaving sobs that racked her entire body.

Leela eventually came to on the floor on a foetal position. Her hair was a mess, her eye felt like it was full of sand and one of her arms was completely numb. She pushed herself upright.

Fry wasn't outside. Leela tip-toed down the corridor to Samuel's cabin and timidly knocked on the door, which slid open a moment later. Samuel looked into her eye. "I heard shouting but-"

"Hush," Leela said, putting a finger to his lips. She pushed him back into the cabin. "We have four hours left. I think it's time we got to know each other."

* * *

Three ships. They'd lost three ships. Arnk wasn't smiling any more. He looked about the bridge of the _Nimbus_, marvelling at how it seemed so undamaged despite the pounding they'd taken but, then, that wasn't surprising given how deep they were within the ship's superstructure. Three ships.

"We're coming up on them now, sir," the scanner's officer said quietly. She was meant to go off duty an hour ago. Most of the bridge crew were over-staying, leaving the night shift to mill around the bridge or act as back-ups.

"Condition?"

"Undamaged and flying free," scanners said, focusing on the Planet Express ship. Arnk nodded. They would be reaching earth in just under an hour. He glanced at the tactical display, which showed his escorts trailing behind in a ragged line. The Nimbus easily outclassed them in speed and endurance. Beyond that, he knew, lay the wrecks of the three doomed ships and the Ruklisk cruiser. The _Finnigan_ had been left behind to monitor for any more real-space signals from the _Arcturus_, but he didn't expect to see much. The computers were still trying to decode the signal they'd received; interference from the corvette's apparent destruction had scrambled it.

Arnk turned to his XO. Contact them. I need to know what they're up to."

"Perhaps they just wanted to go home, sir," the XO said. Arnk nodded, but didn't rescind his order. The XO sighed and passed it on. "Sir, why are we pushing so hard to get to earth?"

"If you hadn't noticed, commander, the Ruklisk are invading."

"Aye sir, but they're still deploying from Eridani. Apart from one or two ships they don't be near earth for another day at least."

Arnk shook his head and pointed at the tactical display. "The _Arcturus_ wasn't blown up by someone's imagination, commander. Whatever hit them was well inside our space a long time before the peace treaty was signed. If that was the Ruklisk and not just a scam by a L.O.T. crew I want to know how many they are, how far they've got and if there are more like them."

It was the XO's turn to nod. He turned to look at the tactical display with his hands behind his back.

"We have contact," the comms officer said. Arnk stood up.

"Main screen."

"Aye sir. Main screen." The tactical display blanked out and then resolved to an image of the Planet Express ship's bridge. A young red-haired woman looked up at them in a little surprise.

"_Oh, hi there,"_ she said, glancing over at the empty pilot's chair. _"Uh... Leela's not here right now."_

"I assume that would be your captain?"

"_That's right. I'm Philippa. Philippa Fry. I guess I'm third in command."_

"As far as I'm aware, a ship of your class normally only has a crew of three or four at most," Arnk replied, pacing toward the screen a little. He waved his hand as if to dismiss the thought. "I really need to speak to your captain."

"_I'll-"_ Fry was interrupted as another, younger woman peeped on to the screen.

"_I could get Kif, he'll be able to talk to these people," _she said, before smiling at Arnk. _"Ooh, another one..."_

"Anyone with command experience will do," Arnk said, forcing a smile on to his face. Both women blushed slightly. He hadn't realised he was that attractive. The younger woman skipped – how odd – out of the bridge, returning a moment later with a rather wary looking Lieutenant Kroker in tow. "Ahh, Lieutenant, how nice to see you again."

"_Captain,"_ Kif said, bowing his head a little. The lieutenant shuffled his feet. _"I'm told you wish to speak to me."_

"Yes, Lieutenant. I am not specifically authorised to do so, however I feel I must convey my apologies to yourself and the others named as terrorists by the Order. I am revoking that status as of now."

"_That's very kind of you sir. If that's all, I really should be going. I have to make sure Zapp is fed and watered again._"

"Forget about him, Lieutenant," Arnk said, with a generous wave of his hands. He stepped toward the screen again.

"_Gladly, sir."_ Kif almost seemed relieved. Or perhaps terrified. Arnk suddenly realised how accustomed he had grown to the Boney way of showing emotions.

"Eiurlg, amfibialo," Arnk said, reverting to his own language. «Lieutenant, you look like you have something more you want to say.»

_«Possibly I do, sir. The humans on this ship believe they have a way to undo Brannigan's 'mishandling' of the negotiations,»_ Kif said. He glanced briefly at Amy, who watched him with a wary eye, before going on. _«It's a rather involved story, but the summary is that this red-haired one was part of some sort of accident that apparently altered the course of history enough to change the outcome of the negotiations. They believe that reversing the accident will restore the original course of events and prevent the Ruklisk from gaining a foothold, amongst other things.»_

«Interesting, Lieutenant, very interesting...» Arnk made a passable impression of rubbing his chin, though he knew only the humans might appreciate it. «And yet there is a possibility... but I will get back to you on that.» Arnk paused, his thoughts occupied by the remaining strength of his fleet. How likely would the others be to turn against the hierarchy? He didn't want to contemplate the direction such questions inevitably lead. "We will accompany you to earth in order to prevent your destruction at the hands of their planetary defence system." Arnk's sudden reversion to standard seemed to surprise the two women on the screen, not to mention his own crew. The red-haired one – Philippa? Such strange names these humans had – stared at him with intense suspicion, but he shrugged it off. "Keep me informed of your progress, Lieutenant."

"_Thank you, sir,"_ Kif said. He turned and stepped out of view. Fry gave Arnk another suspicious glare. She seemed to be quite sad about something, Arnk realised, but strangely determined as well. Perhaps it was just the strain of the last few days.

"_You still want to talk to Leela? I don't think I'll be able to get her before we're ready to land."_

"No, this will be fine," Arnk said. He paused before signalling the XO to turn off the screen. "One more thing, miss Fry. I believe you have Zapp Brannigan on board?"

"_Yeah, he's locked in the laundry again,"_ Fry said, smiling briefly. She glanced over her shoulder, as if expecting someone to enter the bridge. _"He's not very happy right now."_

"Excellent. When you land, please feel free to shoot him for us," Arnk said. He steepled his hands and smiled again. "If what I have just heard is correct, it may not matter, but it would be very satisfying to to me, personally, if that could be achieved. Nothing fatal, just a knee or a toe will do."

"_Right..."_ Fry turned and looked at the dark-haired one, then switched off the screen. Arnk smiled and returned to his seat, where his XO gave him an odd look.

"What?"

"Oh. Nothing, sir. Just..."

"I doubt they'll actually do it," Arnk said, still smiling. "But a man can dream. Any progress on that message yet?"

* * *

Fry didn't turn when Leela returned to the bridge, or even acknowledge her, which suited Leela just fine right then. She settled down into her chair and buckled up. The autopilot flashed up a few routine messages and then informed her of the communication between the ship and the _Nimbus._ "Did I miss anything?"

"We've got an escort," Amy said, pointing out of the window. A great distance off Leela could see a glittering trail moving along with them. "Kif managed to talk the captain of the Nimbus in to escorting us to earth."

"How nice of him," Leela replied, turning off the autopilot. She glanced out of the window at the blue point in space that was Earth. Even at this distance she thought she could see a vague hint of clouds and continents. "Well, we have about fifteen minutes, assuming they don't try and shoot us down the minute we try to land."

Fry seemed like she was about to say something, but then thought better of it. She turned back to her console and stared out at earth. They passed the time in silence, watching Earth grow larger in the front window. They passed through Luna's orbit, and through the orbits of the the three Orbital Cities that danced around the world in complex criss-crossing orbits. Nimbus and her fleet hung back in orbit, sending a pair of assault fighters to accompany them down to the ground. If the defence systems were going to fire, it would have been then.

Nothing. Leela let out the breath she didn't realise she'd been holding. "I guess we're in the clear," she said. Then one of the fighters exploded. "What the f- Amy!"

Amy grabbed on to her seat as Leela executed a perfectly timed corkscrew dive toward the atmosphere. The other fighter pulled into a steep loop and spun around defensively, only to be destroyed by a hail of canon fire. "I can't see it, I... wait, got it! _Loa tyen yeh_... they can't be here!"

"Nimbus!"

"_We have them,"_ Arnk said over the comms. There was a momentary crackle as a maser struck the ship's hull, distorting the signal. _"You had better make your escape fast. There are three more of their cruisers moving across Luna's orbit. We are going to engage them. Good luck."_

Leela killed the comms and twisted the ship into a death-dive, bringing flaming plasma up over the hull as they hit the bulk of the atmosphere too fast and too steep. The sudden manoeuvres stretched the gravity generators to their limits again, sending momentary glitches through the system. Fry screamed as she lifted from her seat and flew across the bridge. She bounced off the rear bulkhead. Leela heard the sickening crunch as something in Fry's body gave way under the impact.

_Almost there..._

The Ruklisk were long gone, lost somewhere above the atmosphere, battling against the _Nimbus_ and her fleet. Leela turned the ship, ignoring every protocol on atmospheric flight as she gunned the engine to its maximum thrust. New New York appeared in the distance, a coruscating chain of lights that reflected in the murk of the Atlantic and spread out along the coast. Home, for what it was worth. She flew toward the Planet Express building, their passage whipping a trail of spray almost a hundred feet in the air as the ship cut through the atmosphere at mach fifteen, trailing plasma and steam in its wake as the atmosphere was sliced in to is constituent elements.

At the last minute Leela flipped the ship over. The hull creaked and groaned at the unaccustomed stresses, and somewhere deep in the ship something gave way with a resounding clang. They came to a halt barely yards from the building, giving Leela a small amount of room to right the ship before landing.

The minute the engines shut off Leela leaped from her seat and ran to Fry's prostrate form. She was still breathing, but barely. "Fry?"

"Mommy, why did the car fall over?" Fry said, opening her eyes. She looked up in to Leela's face and winced. "Ow. Right. Amy, I will never tease you about hitting the wall again."

With great care Fry tried to move. She hissed in pain as she lifted her left leg. Leela reached out to it, but Fry batted her away. "I'm fine. It's just a sprain."

"Phi..."

"Just leave it, Leela." Fry pulled herself upright and then yelped in pain as she tried to stand on her left foot. She hopped over to the ladder and began to climb down.

"Where are you going?"

Fry paused, her upper body still above the deck. She stared up at Leela, her eyes filled with a pain completely separate to the physical. "You made it perfectly clear where I had to be, Leela," she said, before lowering herself down to the mid-deck. Leela leaned forward but Fry had already gone. "Amy, lock down the ship. And when you see Sam, tell him I'm in the Professor's lab."

"Right," Amy said. She stepped over to the pilot's chair and started shutting down the ship's systems. Leela climbed on to the ladder and followed Fry.

Leela caught up with Fry at the bottom of the airlock steps. She grabbed Fry's arm and pulled her to a halt. Fry shrugged off Leela's grip and limped toward the lab. "Phi, wait."

"No."

"Please!" Leela jogged to keep up with Fry and tried to catch her eye. It didn't work. "Fry, you can't blame me for this. I didn't choose this any more than you did!"

Fry stopped in mid-stride and glared at Leela, before turning up the stairs to the conference level. Professor Farnsworth was waiting at the top, poised with his arms a little spread like some benevolent deity. "Ahh, ladies, you're finally here. Everything is ready in the upstairs lab."

Fry nodded and began to follow Farnsworth toward the stairs. Leela hung back a little. She looked around the open hangar, desperate for something, anything that might give her some guidance. Nothing. With a sigh she followed Fry and the Professor.

* * *

"Incoming!"

The bridge rocked as a barrage of high energy weapons-fire slammed against the hull of the _Nimbus_, disrupting systems for a fraction of a second. Arnk was thrown from his chair and sprawled in a heap. He pushed himself upright. "Shields!"

"Holding," someone replied.

"Find out where that ship came from and return fire!" He climbed back into the chair just as another impact shook the room, less urgently this time, but more prolonged. Arnk looked up at the tactical display. A dozen red dots filled it now, swarming around earth, dwarfing his depleted fleet. Arnk had managed to convince the planetary defence grid to start targeting the Ruklisk only after they had started firing at the Lincoln Orbital, by which time it was probably too late for that station. Huge escape pods were racing for the atmosphere, chased by Ruklisk harvesters.

Arnk screwed up his eyes. There was a good reason his people had referred to them as the Abomination. How could the Order have been so wilfully blind?

The combined strength of the defence grid and the fleet was beginning to even the odds now. Ruklisk ships were tumbling, burning, plummeting into the atmosphere of earth as their orbits decayed or venting atmospheric gasses threw them off course. There was a momentary pause as both sides sought new positions, trying to strengthen their advantages and deny the other side the highest orbit. Another Ruklisk ship exploded under the almost constant barrage of munitions and weapons-fire from the defence grids.

Arnk turned to the communications officer. "Anything on that message yet?"

"A moment sir..." the officer switched from the backup weapons console to the comms. "Almost completed. Ninety eight percent restored, all plain text."

"Read it back to me."

The comms officer peered at his screen. "Most of it is a set of coordinates and the stake claim on the Wanderer, its designation, then, lets see..." the ship shivered as a distance-weakened maser played across its upper hull. "It's a sensor readout sir. Seems to be of the Wanderer itself."

"Scanners?"

"Aye," the scanners officer said, bringing up the message. She read what must have been little better than raw code like it was a book. "Seems to be a flash scan of the surface of the wanderer nearest to the ship. Extensive deposits of exotics, chrondrite, water ice... ahh, this is interesting," she said, tapping the screen. "There's a series of low level heat signatures. They were masked, then unmasked. Looks like a fairly extensive long-term colony base, several shipyards and facilities to support two, maybe three strategic interdiction fleets."

"Sounds like they'd been there for quite a while," Arnk said. He looked at the tactical display. They were facing a fleet about equal to _Nimbus's_ support fleet. Two more of those roaming DOOP space. It wouldn't have mattered if the entire DOOP fleet had disappeared or not with that sort of firepower amongst the shipping lanes. "They were planning this for a long time. That wanderer must have entered our space over a century ago."

"Approximately two hundred and fifty years ago, sir."

Arnk rubbed his finger and thumb together. It helped him think. "At least we know about it while there's still a chance to deal with it, but... if Lieutenant Kroker's friends go through with their experiment..." Arnk stood up. "Get hold of-" An explosion. The bridge seemed to tip upside down. Arnk flew from before his chair and then landed on his XO.

* * *

Kif walked on to the bridge just as Amy was shutting down the last of the major systems. He watched her for a moment, smiling to himself at the sight of the young human working away, until she reached the communications console. "Amy, wait."

"Agh! Kif, you scared me!"

"I'm sorry Amy," Kif said, taking her hand. He stroked her arm with his other hand and smiled again. "Can you leave the radio on? I need to get in touch with captain Arnk."

Amy looked down at the console. It was the only system left before shutting off the main computer. She shrugged. "Sure, just remember to turn it off when you're done. Though... I guess it won't matter, really," she added, looking down at the floor. Kif smiled at her and put a hand to her cheek.

"Dearest Amy..." He sat down at the console. "It might be better if you wait outside. Military secrets, you know."

"Sure," Amy said. She clambered down the galley ladder and disappeared into the depths of the ship. Kif turned back to the radio and tuned into the _Nimbus'_ last used frequency.

"Nimbus, this is Lieutenant Kroker calling, come in please." He waited a moment. Static, punctuated by the flare of high energy weapons fire. "Nimbus?"

"_We're here, Lieutenant,"_ a voice said. _"The old man is in the medical bay. I'll patch you through."_

A moment's silence. Kif waited, then: _"Lieutenant Kroker, good to hear you survived."_

"Thank you sir. I hope you aren't injured."

"_Nothing a little rest and recreation won't cure, though I think my executive officer will be sore for a while,"_ Arnk said lightly. He coughed and then went quiet, probably leaning away from the pickup. _"It's a good job you called when you did. I'm afraid we have some unfortunate news. I'll have the bridge crew transmit the details down to you."_

"Thank you, sir," Kif said. He waited again. The communications console made a few odd noises and then began to print out a hard-copy of a message. Kif read the lines that came out of the console, his eyes tracing each one in turn. If his skin could have turned pale at that point, it would have. "Oh no..."

* * *

"Now, miss Fry, you have to stand just here." Farnsworth manoeuvred Fry in front of a large parabolic dish that seemed to be rather brighter than it should have been under the lab lights. It almost glowed, a bright magnesium-white bowl. She screwed up her eyes a little. Leela stood in the background, watching the preparations with a blank expression. "Now then, yes... you need to, uh, just stand there and hold on to this carbon rod. I think that's what you were bringing up for me."

"I don't remember," Fry said quietly, her mind distant. She looked around the lab. "Is this going to hurt?"

"Oh my... I never really bothered to find out." Farnsworth adjusted his glasses and peered at a computer readout. "Not that it matters, of course. Any pain would of course be a temporary and essentially unknown state. A non-event even."

"That's very re-assuring," Fry said. She held up the carbon rod that Farnsworth had given her and looked at it. It didn't seem familiar, but then she wasn't really certain about a lot of the details of the accident.

"Now, that should be everything... all that's required is to wait about five minutes. Fortunately it'll take that long to power up the devices." Farnsworth pottered off behind the grey box attached to the dish and started to open hatches and pull levers. Fry turned to look at Leela while they waited.

"Got any last things you want to say?"

Leela bit her lip. "I... no," she said, closing her eye for a moment. She looked away. "Yes. I enjoyed it, for what it's worth."

"For what it's worth," Fry said. "It's not worth much at all now, is it? We won't remember."

"We won't, but at least we know now." Leela looked at Fry again, and even took a step forward until the Professor shouted at her. She pressed herself back against the wall. "Now is all that matters in the end."

Fry nodded.

* * *

Kif almost tripped over Amy on the airlock steps. He stumbled to a halt near the bottom and looked up to her, pleading. "Where's the lab? I need to stop them!"

"Oh! It's upstairs," Amy said, standing up. She ran down the steps and took Kif's hand. "I'll show you. Oh, but wait here a second."

Amy ran back up to the top of the steps. "Sam! Sam, Leela said she'd be in the lab!"

"Gotcha," Samuel said from somewhere within the ship. Amy smiled and ran back down the stairs. Kif gave her an exasperated look, to which Amy just shrugged.

"Why do you have to-"

"I can't explain, we just have to." Kif ran after Amy as she lead him up the stairs.

* * *

"That's one minute," Farnsworth said. He moved over to the far side of the lab. "Leela, you had better get somewhere a bit further away or you might be caught in the primary effect."

"In a second," Leela said. She stepped closer to Fry again. Fry almost smiled. "Look. I'm sorry. Maybe things will work out, I don't know, but... I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too," Fry said. She didn't move toward Leela, just held out her hand for a second. "Here's to goodbyes..."

"Thirty seconds," Farnsworth said. Leela smiled briefly and stepped back. She moved around the lab until she was next to the Professor. "Fifteen..."

The door burst open, admitting Kif and Amy. Kif ran over to the Professor, waving a sheet of paper. "You have to stop!"

"Wha? But I-"

"Stop the machine!"

"I can't! It's on automatic now, it'll activate in... five seconds. Four."

"No, you have to-"

"Leela, what's going on?"

"Fry!"

"Activating," Farnsworth said. Almost whispered. The parabolic dish began to glow a bright orange, spreading out from the centre until the entire dish seemed to be an infinitely deep orange pit. Then a burst of energy erupted forth, engulfing Fry. She screamed.

* * *

Darkness. And then light. What happened?

* * *

Fry came to in a hospital bed. There was a moment of disorientation as memories slotted back into mind. An accident? Some sort of...

A figure leaned over and looked at her. "How are you feeling?" The voice was gruff, but familiar, the face...

"Lee... Lelan?" Fry said slowly, the word forming in her mind. The man leaning over her smiled slightly. His single eye blinked. "What..."

"We thought we'd lost you there. And..." The one called Lelan stepped back as a nurse came forward holding what looked like a bundle of cloth. Fry felt a sudden overwhelming longing as the bundle was placed into her arms. It began to cry.

* * *

The world ripped away, stealing a single gasp from Fry's lips before the light returned.

* * *

Sounds. Some sort of...

* * *

Darkness again, more profound than before. Fry tried to open his eyes and look around, wondering what had woken him. Leela lay in the bed next to him, breathing slowly, peacefully. He reached out to touch her shoulder. She squirmed under his fingers and rolled over, mumbling in her sleep. Fry rolled on to his back and looked up, smiling.

Right into the face of a Ruklisk.

* * *

Love. Hate.

* * *

Absence...

* * *

Fry wandered across the ruined landscape that had been his home toward the crumbing and faded wall where the graves were. He knelt down by the largest and best kept, and wept over the simple marker that bore Leela's name.

* * *

Light.

* * *

Fry stood at the centre of a raging torrent of energy, sure she should be feeling agony, but feeling nothing. Her skin was numb. She peered out into what looked like the Professor's lab.

"Impressive, isn't it?"

"What?" Fry looked around. A strange, yet familiar figure stood a little distance away in the ever-changing and yet never-changing torrent of light and power. The world shimmered a she turned... or he... Fry looked down. What passed for a body was little more than an androgynous silver lump, a parody of the human form. Fry whimpered. "What the hell is this?"

"Existence. Being. It's hard to explain," the other said. It was the same silvery figure, shiny and bright, yet strangely un-reflective. "I could go all Matrix on you and call it some sort of residual self image, but who in their right minds would imagine themselves as a reject from Lawnmower Man?"

Fry laughed despite... itself. There was a definite lack of the definite article in its mind now. A lack of anything defining. Little more than memory. "Who... what am I? And what are you? What was that?"

"I explained. Essence. The nature of the beast. That which is beneath. Id. Hypostasis." The other tilted its slender head to one side and seemed to regard Fry, despite having no eyes. "Your confusion is considerable, and understandable. Shall I start at the beginning?"

Fry nodded. "Please..."

"Very well. First, you are Fry. Philippa or Philip, right now that is unimportant. You are Fry. Keep hold of that thought."

"Okay..."

The other nodded. Fry got the impression it was smiling, despite not having a mouth. "I am... well, until a few nanoseconds ago I was not. Now I am. I have no name." It held up a fingerless hand before Fry could start talking. "It will make sense in a moment. What you experienced just now was, to invent a term, a reality wash. Multiple possible realities impinging on your conscious perception. Some of them are real, some are not. All of them are possible."

"You mean that one where I had a... a..."

"That particular reality occurring in that fashion had a probability of some sixteen quadrillion to one, unless, of course, you suddenly desired it. In terms of the multiverse that's actually a very high probability." The creature turned away from Fry and walked a little way toward the dish. It reached out to touch it, then hesitated at the last moment. "I should tell you, Fry, right now you are experiencing something that no sentient being should ever be able to experience, the odds are so incredibly remote. At this moment you don't exist."

"I'm pretty sure I do," Fry said, refusing to look down in case even the slick, featureless body had disappeared. "I mean, I'm here, aren't I?"

"Strictly speaking?" Fry swallowed. The creature turned back to him again. "Your Professor was very nearly right when he described the circumstances of your accident. In the broad stroke, you experienced what he referred to as a reality matrix transfer. Elements of another universe were imposed upon your own, altering it at the fundamental level."

"I sort of switched off somewhere near the start when he tried to explain that."

"Indeed. Yet now you understand, after a fashion."

Fry closed _its_ eyes... or tried to. Fry felt the muscles move, felt the eyelids close even, but sight remained. Nevertheless it gave Fry the moment to think. "Hey... you're right, I do. I'm smarter!"

"Fractionally," the creature said with another one of its invisible smiles. It held its hands together. "What your Professor wasn't able to deduce was that the universe that impinged on this one was brought into existence from the moment you desired it. Essentially, that change in state was a result of your innermost desires manifesting. The accident allowed what he termed the reality matrix to become infinitely flexible, at the same time as projecting your ego upon it."

"You're saying I wanted to be a woman?"

"No."

"Then I'm very confused," Fry said. The creature rocked its head back. It might have been a laugh.

"Yes, I imagine you are. It's quite simple really. Your subconscious desired to be close to Leela, or closer than could be achieved as a male. Your culture has somehow impressed upon your ego that women will be necessarily closer to other women than men, no matter how intimate they become. Consequently your desire to be close to Leela expressed itself as a desire to be _like_ Leela. And so you were."

Fry didn't particularly like where this was going but, at the same time, it seemed to make a lot of sense. At least to him. Or her. Or it. He looked out into the misty approximation of the lab, where Leela seemed to be on the verge of reaching toward the blast with her mouth open. "I _was _closer to her until I blew it. Again."

"Yes, you were doing quite well up to that point, but the fault does not lie entirely in your own hands. Leela's prejudices also played a part. As did sheer chance."

"Wait, where do you fit into this?"

"Ahh, well that's the interesting thing, at least from my point of view," the creature said. "I am also a product of your desire. You created me and this momentary continuum because you sought guidance, something of a deus ex machina that would explain everything for you. I am actually one of the smartest creatures in the universe, and I will exist as long as you keep me here. But no longer."

"Wow, that's tough," Fry said, looking the figure up and down. The other shrugged – a strange motion when seen in a perfect mirror-shine. Fry looked about the never-moving yet ever-moving plasma that surrounded them, trying to think of something else to add. "Doesn't that make you sad?"

"I suppose, after a fashion. I do feel a certain regret that my entire existence will consist of answering your questions, but at the same time that is my entire reason for existing. While I do exist I have already experienced everything the universe has to offer, otherwise I would not be particularly wise, so I feel quite fulfilled. It's an odd paradox. I am fortunate I won't have to think about it for very long."

"Yeah but... jeez. That really sucks. I mean, _really _sucks. Can't I make you last longer?"

"I doubt your ego could entertain the idea," the figure said. It seemed to sigh. "The initial conditions that brought me into existence were a product of your subconscious. Conscious desires have little impact on the subconscious. You could not, for example, simply conjure up large pile of money in this state, as much as you might consciously want it, unless your subconscious also wanted it."

"Dunno about that," Fry said, holding out its hands. A bowl of ice-cream appeared. "Hah. Perhaps I've been a woman too long. This was meant to be a beer."

"A better example I could not provide," the other said. It dipped a finger in the ice-cream and seemed to taste it. Plasmatic light swirled around the creature as it leaned forward to peer at the bowl. "Not bad. A little bland, perhaps. The conscious made a demand. The subconscious believed it should supply something based on that demand and upon recent experiences and your own prejudices. It is, in fact, being sexist."

The ice-cream disappeared as Fry's arms dropped to its side. Fry turned a slow circle, looking around the lab, until its eyes rested on Kif waving his piece of paper. "That doesn't look good."

"It isn't. The Ruklisk are invading."

"I know that."

"Yes, but did you know that they were invading anyway?" Fry looked over at the creature. It shrugged. "Of course you didn't. If you haven't worked it out, the Ruklisk were always going to invade. The peace negotiations were a ruse designed to buy more time."

"Can't I zap them out of existence? I'm in this reality thingy, I should be able to-"

"I have little doubt that you could... if your subconscious really wanted it. Does it? Would you actually desire to wipe out an entire species?"

Fry thought, hard, looking deep inside. "No..."

"Whatever choice you have made, there is an extremely high probability that the Ruklisk will begin to overrun human space within the next sixty years, and in almost all cases you would have no knowledge of it occurring until it was too late."

"But... we're fighting them. We're fighting them now! I could just imagine us winning, couldn't I?"

"You could imagine them turning into little balls of fluff but it would make little difference. Conscious desire-"

"Has no impact on the subconscious, I get it already. So... now what?"

"The Ruklisk become immaterial to the choice your subconscious is making. You will chose a reality based upon your desires, whatever they may be."

"But I don't know what they are..."

"Nobody ever does," the creature said sadly. It's voice seemed quieter, distant. "Now, I cease to exist. You have your guidance. Your subconscious has already made its choice." The creature was already fading when Fry looked at it again. It held up a hand to say goodbye. "I would like to say it was fun while it lasted, but it's likely that would be a lie. Well, so long..."

* * *

The blast hit Fry, tearing at body and mind like a fire-storm gale howling through a forest, destroying everything in its path. For a moment there was nothing but the sensation of white heat, and light, and then a feeling of being lifted and thrown. The crunching impact. A million potential voices cried out in identical terror.

The machine exploded.

* * *

"Did it work?"

"If you have to ask... probably not."


	8. Normality

**Chapter Eight - Normality**

Fry's eyes snapped open. A dark room. A hospital room. Dawn light glimmered through a gap in the cheap curtains that hung over the window. Machines bipped and warbled in the background. Fry groaned and flopped back on the pillow. Had it worked?

The questioning of the event, a voice said in Fry's mind, would not exist had you succeeded in the plan you carried. One thing has changed, though; you were not the only one with a desire for another's welfare. Consider it a final parting gift.

Fry groaned and sat up as memory of the voice faded. She held her head in her hands, nursing the pounding ache behind her eyes and groaned again. "Great. I still have boobs."

"And very nice they are too." Fry looked up in shock at the voice. Bender was sitting on the far side of the room, smoking a cigar. It was herbal. It still stank.

"Bender?"

"In the flesh, baby," Bender said, thumping his chestplate. "Or not." He blew a smoke-ring, then stubbed out the cigar on his head and swallowed it. "You look like crap."

"I feel like crap. How did..." Fry stopped and looked Bender up and down. He sported a few shiny patches where some of his parts had been replaced. "Nice to see you walking about again."

"Yeah. That Sam guy is pretty handy with a soldering iron. I feel a hundred and ten percent." Bender hurcked up the cigar again and held it out to examine it. There was a microchip embedded in the side. "Aww, I don't know where these things keep coming from but they'd better not be important."

Fry giggled. She looked around the room but, apart from Bender, it was deserted. Her joy faded away. "Where's Leela? I thought she'd be here."

"Yeah. Well... honestly, I think she went out to pee," Bender said, examining his cigar again. He held up a lighter to it and then seemed to think better of the idea. "She's been taking turns with that boyfriend of hers to watch over you."

"Really?"

"Yeah. They haven't been serious about it though. Every time I come in here they seem to get all angry and run off to a closet down then corridor. At least I think they get angry. Leela's face turns really red."

"Oh." Fry pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. There wasn't much else to say. Bender rocked his eyes about a little and returned to his spot by the window. He opened the curtains, and then the window itself, and leaned out to smoke his cigar. Fry blinked and smiled at the robot. It wasn't like him to be so considerate.

She turned on the TV and watched the news for a minute. It didn't make particularly pleasant viewing, with stories of a brewing war between the Democratic Order and the Ruklisk, and snatched tales of invading fleets appearing as if by magic in the middle of DOOP space. Fry grimaced and switched it off.

The door opened. "All right Bender," Leela said as she came in. "You can go home and- oh. you're awake." Fry nodded. Leela walked around the end of the bed and stood leaning on the guard rail. She stared at Fry, her face an image of studious neutrality.

Bender turned from his window and took in the scene. "Ahh. You going to get angry again?"

"Ang... no," Leela said, frowning. Bender managed a fairly good approximation of a shrug and light-stepped from the room, humming to himself. The smell of cigars and alcohol faded after him. Leela turned around, leaning back in the guard as she looked out of the window. "So. You're awake."

"Yep." Fry lowered her knees and leaned back in the bed a little, making herself comfortable. When Leela didn't speak again she crawled out from under the covers and knelt at the guard-rail beside her. "You're not saying much."

"That's because there's not much to say," Leela replied. She folded her arms. Fry raised her eyebrows and then frowned.

"Wow. I remember getting the silent treatment before but it never felt bad until now."

"Hah." Leela stood up and walked over to the window, where she looked out over the small portion of the city she could see. Fry shrugged and clambered from the bed, reasoning she should at least put on some underwear now.

"Did anyone bring my pyjamas?"

"Second drawer down," Leela said, turning around. She stared at Fry again, mouth working as she tried to form what she wanted to say. "Fry, how could you do this?"

Fry paused half way through pulling clothes from the drawer. "Do what?"

"This. Choose to be..." Leela sighed and sat down on the bed next to Fry. She put her hands between her knees and stared at them. "You know, if you'd done what you promised to do we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

Fry pulled on her pyjama pants and sat down next to Leela. "It worked out all right didn't it?"

"That's not the point," Leela replied, screwing up her face. She looked at Fry. "You based your decision on your feelings toward me. As far as you knew changing everything back was the better choice, but you didn't choose it."

"Leela, I didn't _have_ a choice."

"You mean you didn't let yourself-"

"No." Fry stood up and walked across to the window. She leaned on the window-frame and started out at the city. "I don't really remember much of what happened. I know that I tried to change things, but it didn't work. I couldn't..." she turned around to look at Leela. "It wasn't a choice I could make. No matter how much I understood what had to be done up here," she said, tapping her head, "I just couldn't change how I felt in here."

Fry put her hand on her heart. Leela rocked her head to one side and peered at Fry, her cheeks colouring up slightly. She stood up. "I told you..."

"I know, Leela, and I'm sorry." Fry leaned back on the window and tucked her hands under her armpits. She closed her eyes. "All I can do is apologise. I've been apologising for how I felt for you ever since we met, why should now be any different?"

"That doesn't matter now, Fry," Leela said. She stood up and walked toward the door, then paused with her hand on the handle. "You could have got us all killed."

"Like I said, it worked out all right."

Leela suddenly punched the door, caving in the cheap wooden veneer. "Damnit..." she turned and glared at Fry. "It could just have easily screwed up completely, Fry! Don't you get it? You can't make decisions like this based on your feelings!"

"Why not?"

"Because it's not safe! It's dangerous!"

"Oh like you're all so cold and logical all the time," Fry said, letting her arms drop again. She could feel her hands balling into fists and forced them to straighten out again. Leela massaged her knuckles, still glaring at Fry, but didn't say anything else so Fry carried on. "You just can't accept that I might actually be right about something."

"Now that's not fair."

"Oh, as if any of this is fair," Fry said, downcast. She looked up at Leela again. "Everything works out for the best but you don't want to see it that way. You're the one who made the mistake. You're the one taking your anger out on me for being right. How is that fair?"

Leela scowled at Fry. "You..." she sighed and turned away. "I don't feel like arguing with you right now, Fry."

"No. If course you don't," Fry said quietly. She turned and looked out of the window, watched the traffic skim by far below and above.. "I guess I'll be out of here in a few days. Maybe I'll see you at work."

"Maybe." Fry waited until the door had closed before she looked back into the room. She fought the urge to run out into the corridor after Leela and concentrated on finding the rest of her pyjamas.

* * *

_Dearest Diary,_

_It's me again. Who else would it be? Samuel, perhaps, who seems to have taken a great interest in reading everything I've written to you about him. I have a lot to say today, but I don't know how to say it, which is something that may surprise you. It surprised me._

_First, the good news. Samuel proposed to two nights ago, after a wonderful dinner that he cooked for me himself. I'll get back to that in a moment though, because I want to go over the bad news too._

_I have had an argument with Philippa. A big one. I think I just blew away any chance we have of fixing up our friendship after the last argument. I just hope she's able to see past the mistake I made. That's right, I made a mistake, and she called me on it. It hurts to hear someone point out when you're wrong and at the time I was so angry with her for making what I thought was a bad decision, without really thinking about why it was bad in the first place. The only reasons I had to think that way are moot now. She said it best; things worked out all right._

_But I was still angry. I'm starting to realise part of the anger was at myself, for reasons that I can't even tell you right now, dear diary, because they hurt so much, and because I knew she was right. I don't like being wrong._

_And yet, in the end, I'm glad I was, because this way I at least have Samuel. Dearest Sam, he's so sweet. He reminds me of Fry back when she was a he._

_Philippa once told me that she doesn't worry about the future because it would send her crazy, and that she only ever thinks about now. Samuel said the same thing as well once. That night I finally realised what that meant. I said yes._

* * *

Normality. It was a strange concept, the idea that this was normal, real, not some strange dream. Philippa watched the traffic far below snake its way past the Robot Arms, her hands against the thick glass of the window. She turned away and looked back into what could now reasonably be called a living room. It had a carpet.

Bender was in her bedroom, painting. He was whistling. He had even picked wallpaper. Philippa tried to work out just when the robot had changed but she couldn't put her finger on the precise moment. Even the herbal cigars, supposedly better smelling, had all but disappeared.

The robot stopped and looked at her. Philippa smiled at her friend. "That looks very nice, Bender."

"Great. Hey, whatever the ladies want, huh?" Bender carried on whistling as he picked up a spry gun, then started to sing a little. "Paintin the walls, pretty things gettin made... doo doo doo doo gonna get laid..."

Philippa laughed for the first time in days. Some things would never change. She stacked up all her old clothes and piled them into a bag. There was surprisingly little. "Bender? I'll see you at work, okay?"

"Sure thing. Hey, there's a new version of the Ninplaybox out. If you go past that store again flash the guy a little ass for one, will you?."

"Very funny," Philippa said. She put on her coat – the only thing she was keeping from back then – and slipped out of the door.

She decided to walk to work. The weather was nice, the air was fresh, and frankly she couldn't afford the cab ride after all the money she'd spent on changing their apartment. Bender tolerated it. She knew he wouldn't be happy about some of the changes, but he tolerated it. That was the one difference about him.

Philippa found herself in a park a few blocks from the Planet Express building. She'd been here before a few times, back when walking alone had been a therapy and not just something to do for a few hours. There were other people here now, taking in the view, enjoying the fresh air. An attitude of wonder and relief had come over New New York after the attempted invasion, though it had never got anywhere near the ground. Sometimes people just needed reminding of the moment.

She looked up at the sky. Somewhere up there the fleets were still patrolling, hunting down the remaining Ruklisk and their slaved minions. A sizeable portion of the Democratic Order had been subverted by the time the tide turned. Nobody knew if they would ever be turned back. Philippa didn't particularly want to think about it. She looked down again, casting her gaze around the park. That was when she saw Leela.

She was sitting under a tree, reading a book with her little pet thing Nibbler by her side. The creature looked up and gibbered when Philippa approached. For a moment it seemed to give her a strange, almost angry look that Philippa decided had to be her imagination. "Hi Leela."

"Oh. Hi." Leela carefully folded up her book – she'd been writing, not reading. It was a diary. She didn't look up at Philippa. "How are you?"

"Still female," Philippa said, pouting a little. Leela smiled in spite of herself. "Bender's painting."

"I heard about that." Leela sighed and looked up at the sky. She seemed to be thinking about something. "I guess you got the invitation?"

"I did. I'm surprised. Getting married after a week of dating. That's not like you, Leela."

"I felt like being impulsive," Leela said. She picked at the grass and let it float away in the wind. "I've had two people tell me that the moment is what matters. Perhaps I should listen to them more..."

Philippa turned and sat down next to Leela. She stroked Nibbler's belly; the little creature kicked his leg and purred. "I'm surprised you send me an invitation"

"It was Sam's idea," Leela replied. She picked up her diary and started to stand up.

"Leela, wait." Philippa stood up, facing Leela. The other woman refused to look at her. "I'm sorry, okay? I said things... I was confused. We were stressed, I was terrified of losing you again."

Leela peered at her. She fingered her diary, tapping out a tuneless tattoo on the leatherette binding, then suddenly grimaced. "Tell me it was jealousy or something," she said. "Or that you were trying to get Sam into bed, or drunk... anything. Tell me you didn't mean what you said."

Philippa shook her head. "It'd be a lie, Leela. I can't lie to you."

She reached out to touch Leela's arm. There was no flinch. Leela licked her lips very slightly and looked at the floor. "Honesty is a rare commodity these days," she said. There was a moment of silence, then she looked up at Philippa again. "You _really_ meant it?"

Philippa nodded. She took hold of Leela's free hand and held on to it with both her own. "I still do, and it that makes you uncomfortable, well, I can just go away. I'll join the navy, or move to another planet."

"No..." Leela's eye was full of longing, but Philippa could see it she'd never admit to anything. She nodded slowly and let go of Leela's hand, before turning away. "Phi, hold on a second."

Philippa paused. Leela's hand rested on her shoulder and gently pulled her back around. They stared at each other for a long time, just letting the world pass by, not caring. It was as close as she'd ever get.

"You want to maybe get some coffee later?"

"I'd love to."

"Me too," Sam said, stepping out from behind the tree. He smiled and took Leela's hand. "I know this nice place down the road. The owner's an idiot but-"

Leela slapped Samuel's shoulder. "Quiet you. We were having a moment."

"I know," Samuel said. He looked back at the tree. "Actually I was waiting to see if it would turn into more than a moment, but then I realised we have to get down-town to pick out the rings." He smiled at Philippa. "Would you like to join us?"

"Sure, if Leela doesn't mind," she said quietly, looking at Leela's eye. Leela nodded and then smiled.

"Why not?" She hooked her arms for them both and and grinned as they reciprocated. "Now this is more like it," she said as they walked out of the park and on to the streets of the city.

* * *

"Hey, what about Zapp?"

"What about him? He was... oh, shit. I'd better call Amy."

"At least he'll be able to tell us what velour tastes like."


End file.
